A Smile

a smile is what
it took -
and joy welled
up and danced
with laughter
in my heart.

Your face,
it wrinkles in
the lines I
love to trace
to the dimple
on your cheek

and run my
fingers down
your neck.
And gaze a
million years
into your eyes

and drown for
a moment there,
your smile and
laughter sparkling,
washing away
the day's sadness.

They say that
love is madness,
but all I feel is
joy, and -
longing for your
coming home

to hold me -
close
your warm
embrace -
and to whisper,
I love you.

© Eleanor Clark
2 February, 2016

I Have Felt Hell

I have felt hell
while rocking
in pain - tears
streaming down
my face while
I choke on my
toothbrush,
laughing at the
absurdity of this
complete lack
of hope as my
body betrays me -
breath by breath
and moment by
moment.

I have felt hell
in the sleepless
nights when unsure
if dreams came
or if it was all
one blur of
unrest and wakeful
watching through
the inky black
of tortured night.

Hell they say
is a place for the
damned.
Hell can also be
here and now
on earth, where
hope flees in
ghostly white
against the coming
of the dawn.

© Eleanor Clark
9 October, 2015

Pain

Pain, they say,
is a great teacher.
Perhaps, with
decades of joy
and laughter
in between the
spaces - it
might
be.

But, tonight,
pain is a
skilled torturer
adept -
at shrinking this
human flesh into
a sobbing mound
drowning in the
swollen ecstasy
of tears.

Pain, they say,
helps you
know you are
alive - well
then why -
has
it

crushed

me into

nothingness

until
I
no
longer belong

to
life
and
limb.

Pain, my friend
your absence
will be

pleasure.

© Eleanor Clark
26 August, 2015

Job

Job did complain
a little -
Perhaps it was
in the dimming
shade of evenings
gone on too
long in pain,
anguish for losses
uncountable.
The ache of
despair and
darkest fears,
unleashed again
once more until
he wondered
if perhaps he
had gone mad
and lay
coughing, hacking
out his life's blood
and hoping that
morning would
bring him home
to God.
I wonder if
perhaps when
wrath had been
beaten out
and joy had
come, did Job,
walk crookedly,
slowly up the
mountainside and
weep for all that
was lost.

© Eleanor Clark
20 August, 2015