Hecale | A Portal For Writers

Starting Arguments

My words are stillborn into the air,
useless, limply hanging there;
deathlike, motionless and cold.
echoes repeated,
growing old.

I wish I'd never opened my mouth
and let its nasty tongue lash fear,
paint the walls of the room rage-red
and fill the thick and waiting silence
with the sickening colour of violence.

Torn parts ripped apart,
and I am left with decay grey vows
never to open heart or mouth now.

(Previously published in Inclement magazine, Autumn 2006)

©Sophia Argyris 2006

Nightmares Come Rushing

These nightmares come rushing
with a hunger.
I watch you swept away
by the sobbing tide;
my arms are left wrapped
around a darkness;
it cries out in your voice,
too insubstantial and too far gone.
My guilt will be born, and borne
away with you.
You cannot swim.
The water fills your mouth.
My guilt suffocates me in the heat of the bed
where the nightmares come rushing
with increasing ferocity.
You drown in my dreams
and night after night
I fail to save you.

(Previously published in Argotist Online)

©Sophia Argyris 2007

In Paris

We stayed by the bullet-speckled wall
whilst it whispered histories; imagined soldiers
in the café at Montmatre we visited every day,
despite the suspicions of the elderly gentleman
waiting tables, who watched to check we paid.

In Pere Lachaise we fell through holes,
between the letters of names we knew,
and names we didn't, carved into elaborate structures
built in memory of lives completed before ours began.
I felt the past in every stone we touched,
hands receptive to the essence ingrained.

Time swam the streets, fell with a sudden
downpour of rain, prompting us to buy
an umbrella which proved unreliable
within minutes; crooked and broken like
a crow held above our heads as we ran
for the shelter of nearby buildings.

Down in the veins of the ground The Louvre
opened and swallowed us, its belly too vast
to explore in one day, a journey too epic
to embark on without preparation. We lost ourselves
amongst the paintings and sculptures, confused
by the awe leaning into us from all angles.

And with each expression on your face,
each new movement of your hand
my sense of magnitude and safety settled
a little deeper.