Storymania - Across Burnt Bridges, A Collection of Verse by Victor Burke

Across Burnt Bridges, A Collection of Verse
Victor Burke

Across Burnt Bridges

On this street of blistering cold
as thought crumbles and breaks
throughout the blackest abyss
you remain the lady of the lake

you arm me with courage
and fortify me with light
a whisper toward a dying hope
a chance to make things right

the losses spill over the day's gaze
and run the length of my face
as ditherings of normalcy and desire collide
becoming one in alabaster, chrome and lace

a familiar feeling I've never known
washes over me every time I see you

one soul linked together by a touch
denied but still needing to hold you so much

I know that you know and have always known
I knew you before I knew you: I know it's true

I take in my past lives and expel renewed hope
you are always within me though we are forever apart
but beyond countless boundaries
you are and always will be my heart

The Magnificence of Life

sitting in a half-empty dive just before closing with a scarf over my eyes
staring at an empty chair through a flat beer like a lot of other lonely guys
entertaining delusions of reprieve that I call optimism in my conceit
sanctimonious cur in the corner browbeating the rest of us to get some heat

back to my world where a day comes along when your life aint your own
just like a cinder in the breeze in the night with no place and no home
the cold finds you restless; friends fall away like leaves from a dying tree
there's a blatant cancer stealing the light away and it looks like me

nothing comes to me but a seductive peace masquerading as mine
stagnant faith leads me to believe that the future's been left behind
the touch so serene; the scent so appealing, like a lady on a Friday night
arrested desire cut short spelled out wrong but appearing quite right

I like to sit back, relax, close my eyes and see you there in that dress
I'd like to take you in and hold you close but it's too late I guess
I wasn't there for you, but then, you weren't there for me
our love drifted away like debris on an indifferent sea

In a more concise time and place I played a fool to win a dream and make the cut
though I climbed high, the cr�me de la cr�me still beat me with both eyes wide shut
I was sure, that in our hearts and in our souls, our love was secure: a safe bet
we'd lived and learned, we'd hurt and been burned; always work with a net

you're a demon tracking mud through my mind with cleats made of glass
another member of the old school slipping more today than the youth of the past
a classic case amid factions, in countless bars, split by a vice and lost in the rafters
where intimate memories haunt us and sweet mercy is as unaffordable as rapture

there are said to be kindred spirits amidst the idle winds who feel as we do
half-hearted attempts to move ahead revealed a chain that still binds me to you
flummoxed I squeezed into a tight spot forged from flame against flesh at a lull
watch all hope run dry and fall short while a war rages somewhere at the back of my skull

no love, no drugs, no news, no views, no light, no life to offer a semblance of relief
moaning and groaning, kicking and screaming into tomorrow on an undercurrent of grief

at the end of it all, escaping notice my heart is Thoreau but the world is Howard Stern
unmoored and adrift, through my drink and the haze, I wonder if I missed my turn