Havoc In The Peace

This poem was written as part of a post for a Weekly Photo Challenge.  The theme was ‘Broken’ and my post, entitled ‘Broken Tree’, can be read by clicking here.

My thoughts at the time were focused on the initial frustration of having been without my laptop due to technological problems but which was very quickly followed by my pleasant surprise at having re-discovered the power of handwriting.

I realised that I always write my poems by hand but I was also able to find a way out of my mental block in creating character descriptions for a fiction assignment by writing them down by hand in the first instance.  I wondered if others had found this to be true.

It was during my unintended ‘silence’ – that is, away from the laptop – that this poem rose up from within, clawing its way out and onto my notebook.  I was struggling with some conflicting emotions about the cruelty of some people.

Specifically, this poem is about a person who steals the peace of another with their narcissist and manipulative mind-games. Ultimately, this person is capable of destroying another’s peace with the havoc which they seem to take pleasure in creating.

It is dark but I hoped for redemption at the very end.

Havoc In The Peace

Wipe that gash of a smile off your
sick, plastic gaze, toying as it creeps up
into the no-doubt-about-it
lines leaching out from the
Death around your eyes.

Reach up into the cruel expanse
of purpose-built lies
As you grasp and seek havoc
Where the lonely dove sighs.

Oh to wonder in the meadow-green
with the cornflour-blue
and the Red-River seen
pure and driven, carcass-riven
In the deep of the unclean.

Reach up into the cruel expanse
of purpose-built lies
Where they seek havoc in the peace
while a little boy cries.

And when the end comes
As surely as it must of any
craven-filled dearth, spluttered
out and kicked to Christ
Where then, in a touch of breeze;
Just give it to me now, then

Turn into a whisper, caught unheeded
singing sweetly, spoken lightly on the air:
‘Keep your charm, for I deliver,
casting lots for my despair.’

Reach up then, into the cruel expanse
and embrace your dark lies,
As they reek of havoc in the peace
Where my broken heart dies.

‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’
Psalm 34:18

(c) Copyright Sherri Matthews February 2014