Untitled

The days pass

Like judges in solemn robes

Ominous and obscene 

John A. Youril (2021)

#poetry

Maya

Three seasons have passed since I last traveled these gloomy roads

A new winter embraces the world in its silent yearnings

With each mile my limbs grow weaker, my breath heavier, my vision darker.

My last pilgrimage to where I left you

Deep in far mountains, too far now for my failing body to reach.

For all eternity you were with me

But now even eternity has betrayed us

Even more than death betrayed us

My heart is becoming one silence with your heart

Still and forever apart.

John A. Youril (2023)

#poetry

Untitled

In the cold twilight
When your eyes become one with the clouds and the stars
And my still breath settles in your unbeating heart
Still we dream
Alone
Dreaming of our dreaming.

John A. Youril (2023)

#poetry

Hieroglyph 10

We meet as if in a dream
And the silence here whispers of the morning
To bathe again in the dark waters of eternity
To rest and then to live
That is the cycle of our days
And that which is not in us is nothing at all
You are as ephemeral now as you have always been
A white cloud in the sky
A glimmer in my soul's tranquil pool
The dawn of destruction it has always been
The cold mornings of your sad withdrawals
But we are beyond that now
And upon this awakening we shall never again pass into dreams.

Hieroglyph 7

Now has the silence of all things been revealed
The dull inconsequence and litigious clash of fate.
The morning comes and the birds resume their bleak stuttering
The wind rattles the frozen glass.

–John Youril 

#poetry

Hieroglyph 6

The day has been diminished beyond all measure
And I am thankless in the strange work of salvation that you have brought me to
This eternal darkness of your light and cold passion of your heavens
The game of resurrection and the grim solace of grace.
By the river there was warmth and life
Laughter
And the holy embrace of my own kind in all the seasons of the world
But you have brought me to
Eternity itself
In all its pointless opacity
In its empty pain and self consuming hunger.
I would return to my own land and time
Where the earth is fertile and the seasons each have their own glory
But the changelessness of this spot has possessed me and taken my body as its own
As it has taken you
And cast your soft flesh into the freezing waters of existence.
Of all my dreams, you were the splendor and elusive texture
You were the meaning beneath the restlessness of my wanderings.
But you led me here to reveal yourself
Where you bathe in solitude and commune with the silent voice of being
Shedding your garments and wading into the dark tributaries of time
To a place where I live and cannot live
Where I have no place or purpose
No life as any mortal thing ever knew or wanted
And it is precisely this deception that is your love
And your unfathomable mercy
To lead me into this abyss
And to seal the gate of my returning.

Hieroglyph 5

In what light do you seek me that I am all the blood and darkness of the world
And what shadows have you thrown upon me and mingled with my breath
That I am your fear and coldest hatred of your kind
The dread silence
The solitude and awesome power of the night.

I have wandered these many months no stranger in your life
But a black presence in the vast and empty womb of your embrace
The one who comes when restless thoughts turn to calm death
And the covers weigh too heavy on your breasts
The voice and touch of all your life's misgivings
The end of solace and the solace of all endings.

HIeroglyph 4

We have walked in the dark fields of eternity
With blood and breath concealed from all men
And the wind that stirs night's cold ashes upon us like a black mantle.
Here the fog rises
And the stars' unholy glistening shimmers upon the unseen waters of the abyss.
Beyond the seasons and all the days of sanity
Where this spot begins there is no ending
And the void seeks out the void.
For ten thousand years no shadow has marked the hour and no life disturbed the serene indifference of being
And no witness shall ever bear us out.

Hieroglyph 3

What can be said of the lives we have wasted here
The blood and breath that we have chained to the rock
The thoughts we have let perish on the dark sword of our days.

An ominous eternity lurks over the sand
While the bleak game continues over the final catastrophe of time.
We are the death here
And the mindless avenging hand.

A pause in the labyrinth is all that remains of our love
A moment stolen from confusion
A ripple in the endless darkness
A cold and tattered instinct for our home.

Among the statues that we plant like wheat
And the grim nameless stones scattered in our unholy fields
What disembodied voices still scream in our winds
What endless dreams of theirs still violate our sleep.

Hieroglyph 2

Can we find our silence in the cold morning of eternity
Or bring from the shadows the dust of our being
We are alone here
Captured in the gray confusion of the day
We are dying here
Repeating sounds that echo in the dark.

You rose from the sapphire light and landed quite alone in the black waters of existence.
You came and then you left again
With a million ripples that changed the world and then died unnoticed
The whole spectrum of life injected into time and demolished by the hour.
A dark passage in an unbeating heart.

Hieroglyph 1

In what darkness do your sullen dreams hide
Brooding on the blood-splattered day and pacing the deserted rooms of eternity.
The silence here is unnerving, pacing, lurking in the shadows and waiting out the sun
Your thoughts are a frost that kills in the night and vanishes before morning
The rain comes and goes without reason.
Where are you now, this minute, this one single instant in all the dead vastness of time.
What have you found that is worth the forgetting
What plans that will crumble to the ground.
The years we have spent together are like dull dreams waking in anguish
And the whole oratory of half-spoken words discovers in itself a meaning.
One day more in the wilderness
One more evening thought to sleep with.