Protasis
Forensic ruin seeped into my life
Through the doorway to my future
No one was on guard
At the arrival of the dangerous ones
Some were close at hand
Others I never knew would come
Wedging the gate
Tragedy requires back story
A lifetime of striving
By sixteen I was
Working eighty hour weeks
Food service pays in varicose veins
And suicidal ideation
Even in the young
By eighteen I was broken
Poverty lay culpable
Years of struggle and abandonment
That words merely cheapen
Sisyphus my companion
Days blurred by petty change
Nights running down concrete corridors
Out the backdoor of the American mall
Into empty parking lots
Trying to see in the dark
Epitasis
Two years of saving
Promotions, evaluations, and initiations
Got me to the promise
Of higher education
A private school
Where students really mattered
My professors were my peers
The precious, spoiled kids
Their well pressed lives
Well, I didn’t fit in
My senior thesis in college
Liquid nitrogen flash freezing green buds
The mortal and pestle grinding
Separating into its elemental parts
Strands of Deoxyribonucleic Acid
Sent through gel electrophoresis to find
Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Markers
Refining, comparing, determining genetic relatedness
A taste of things to come
It was a year of upheaval
A year of final tests
Joy ambushed me with an engagement
To the man across the hall
He created space,
Showed up with love
Grateful, besotted, and delirious
I allowed myself to imagine
White dress, black gown
Two rites of passage united
Emanating hope
Our congregation of families darkened
By dysfunction, divorce and illness
Friends devoured themselves
And one another
A poisonous spider struck leaving
Necrotic spots
These were our wedding gifts
We planned to graduate,
Get married, launch careers
Create a home from scraps
Broken but our own
A garden growing out of burnt earth
All these naïve shoots
Were overshadowed
By the advent of murder
Weeks of accusations,
Of horrors and of blood
Stained brown in time
A young woman’s life
Obliterated by greed
Her destiny slaughtered
For only nine hundred dollars
Her legacy so shattered
I can’t even remember her name
We were awfully estranged
No one could be together amidst
Celebration, mourning, and fighting
While the killer fled the nation
Bullet pierced her brow
Eradicating her last thought
Justice demanded a trial
Prejudice tore at the jury
Three days we deliberated, hung,
Through the apathy of one,
In the end the juror
Didn’t want to choose
She caved to watch her soaps
Judgment rendered a life sentence
Catastrophe
Juxtapositions that made no sense
Death/new life; union/dissolution
All chaos conspired
A close range shot
Titrating stress hormones
Each moment hard won
The surreal landscape expanded
Our honeymoon a gift
Spent on a hurricane ravaged
Caribbean island all the time
Knowing we were ruined
Never wanting to leave the
Destroyed place
We felt at home, the aftershock
A breath away from homelessness
With the monsters closing in
We fought each other
Vitriolic words
Directed at the sky
These things I never thought I’d learn
Exposed in graphic detail
The intensity of familial
And societal agony
Writ large
Shrapnel blown into me
The entrance wound looked clean
There was so little blood
It was the exit wound, the obscured one,
That proved the true disaster
Forensic ruin seeped into my life
Through that tiny hole, a portal to my future
Chromapoetica 
whew…epic in scope…vivid…lots of great layers to this one…
Thank you, your comments are always encouraging and helpful.
great images here
i held my breath and was almost blue with anoxia when i read the last line…epic indeed
oh – and the comment above was me..claudia…wrong account…i got a bit mixed up.
I’m sorry you held your breath but I’m glad it grabbed your attention. It was such a difficult piece to write and revise.
that was quite a tragic story with a intro, life’s phases and an uncertain conclusion, many-a-times the not so apparently visible is the most devastating.
Thank you for reading the work and resonating with its message.
awesome thoughts shared, rich imagery.
Happy Rally.
Thanks, I’m looking forward to reading all the submissions.
intense and terrifying! But very well written… it sent a chill down my spine!
I’m glad it was effective. Thank you for your comment.
Wow.
An excellent piece, a roller coaster of intensity, well written and most enjoyable to read
Thank you, as I said to Claudia this was very difficult to write as it was so close to home. I tried and failed miserably a couple times so I appreciate the feedback immeasurably. Fortunately, it is fifteen years in the past.
A most tragic story, full of so many vivid images by well-tuned phrases.
Thank you for your time and feedback.
An intense and immensely engaging narrative had me hooked from the first word to the last. Great write. Thanks for sharing. James.
Wow this is brilliantly written, raw, earth-shattering, heart-rending incredible
Coming from a writer of your caliber this is a comment I’ll treasure!
Holy cow! You have the makings of a great novel here! Fantastic storytelling in a wonderful style. Well done!
Thanks, I can’t tell you how many times people have suggested that I write a book about my life. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated.
What a story!
wow..that caught me speechless. such vivid illustrations that I never thought possible in a poem. definitely helped me alot..writing-wise..thanks!:)
Glad to hear it was helpful from a writing standpoint. That’s wonderful.
Lovely language and imagery here; sometimes the enjambement doesn’t quite work for me as it fragments the sentences but maybe that’s what you intended?
A powerful and highly emotional story though; left me feeling moved. Thank you.
The fragmentation in the enjambment was intended to either build suspense, disorient the reader, or aid emotional response, though looking back it may have been too liberally applied. Since the subject matter was violent, disturbing, remembered (which always adds a sense of shifting sands) I was attempting to imbue the verses with uncomfortable breaks that mirrored my sense of fear, confusion, or anticipation. Thank you very much for the feedback, I will let it soak in.
My goodness. Now if that wasn’t a whirlwind and a powerhouse of emotion I don’ know what is. A lifetime, captured in lines of startling description, potent imagery…raw, tragic, and gripping. To pour so much out on a page…well done, very well done.
Gosh Chris, I had a bit of a cry after your lovely comment. Thank you.
Peeling back layers – full of emotion and honesty. A great piece of writing. Difficult to write (I assume) and difficult to read…but enormously engaging. // Peter.
Emotional honesty and integrity are the cornerstones of my writing and my life. Thank you for the acknowledgment, it was difficult to write. I struggled with the paucity of artistic expression to encapsulate tragedy. I enjoyed reading your work today.
I felt what you intended. Your diction and devices serve to impart the violence, heartbreak, fragility, unpredictability. This piece works.
Thank you, Kim. There were a lot of difficult choices for this piece.
hey now, I do like this…quite a lot…very nice. very very nice.
Reading made me feel somebody hit me their fist, in my gut and then clenched my heart… it’s a whole life, the violence seeped so deep in that it’s everywhere… a story amazingly well told in verse…
What a read and story. Riviting and artfully presented.
http://henryclemmonspoet.blogspot.com/2011/07/love-you-lie.html
Powerful poetry indeed. Each perfectly crafted phrase is made to work hard, to convey so much.
Thank you. I enjoyed reading your psycholojests.
Quite powerful and rather vivid. A great tale indeed.
I cried. I never cry. It felt as though you’d been my shadow and exposed my all secrets to the world. Beautifully written and compelling. I am inspired. A high compliment – from one humble poet to another. More please…
Thank you for your honest comment. I am sorry I made you cry but heartened that I expressed something that you resonated with, I’m honored. I look forward to reading your work and cherish your feedback.
Staring at the page, the words boil and melt and turn to blood, sweat, and tears. What a claustrophobic tale of hopes dashed at the depths of Charybdis. *Applause*
What a wonderful turn of phrase, I feel like an alchemist! Something good has come from all that sorrow.
I don’t know how I missed this when originally posted, Anna. My loss, and I thank you for pointing me to it. This is splendid forensic re-enactment, reconstruction and analysis, as well as chilling truth unsparingly provided concerning the shrapnel randomly (and not so randomly) flying all around us as we try to do something as simple as live and be happy. Fine, fine writing, direct and clear and indeed, epic, Thanks for opening all the wedged doors and doing the hard work that made it possible.
Thank you for your understanding reading and always valuable comments!
Oh, Anna. It amazes me how this sort of incredible, exhausting, unforeseen stuff tends to come along in groups, knocking us right out of whatever comfort zone or sense of order we had. Even after, it can be hard to make any sense of it, as it would be impossible to assign sense to clinging on to a capsized boat in a storm…one just does it, and when it is over one is simply glad to have made it through.
However, as poets, it is in our nature to try to put some order to things, to find some sense in there somewhere, or at least some wisdom or release. You’ve done a beautiful job here. I feel as if I’ve been through a rough sea myself in just having read it. Bravo, both for the poem, and for persevering. And I am so glad you pointed me to this, I would not have wanted to miss it.
Thank you Fireblossom for taking the time to read it, I love the image of the capsized boat. I deeply appreciate your comments, they’ve gone straight to my heart.