Lights In The Rain



  Lights In The Rain

  by

  Osman Welela

  Copyright 2014 Osman Welela

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  Thank you for your support.

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  For troubled souls,

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  Contents

  Lights in the Rain

  A Time Piece

  The Sky of Babylon

  A Book on the Shelf

  Abyss

  Flesh of Stone

  Dark Reflections

  River of Bodies

  I'll Grant You a Shot

  One More Mountain

  Waiting

  Creeks in Winter

  Look Down

  Raindrops in the Sunset

  Black Cup

  An Old Friend

  Emperor

  The Smile of an Urchin

  Under a Lemon Tree

  Cold Life

  About the author

  Other works by Osman Welela

  Connect with me online

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  Lights In The Rain

  Seconds drip from a clock,

  While years rot in the dark,

  And you feel the clutches of a time past

  Eroding your weary heart.

  Up goes fortune,

  Scatter does hope of love,

  Blown apart by a jealous wind,

  To all the corners of the known world.

  Or maybe not,

  It does not merit a thought,

  Life goes on

  While you are too young to understand its lesson.

  But age finally catches up with all the loads of regret you earn,

  As faces turn,

  To see what has become

  Of their golden one,

  And you see the truth in the shadow of the sun,

  That place of dreams where hearts are won;

  It's all passed far too quickly and you've not done yet your full part,

  You've always been too slow in your start.

  And as you hear the distant bells toll,

  With no time left to burn you hear the silence call,

  As all you feel becomes a fading pain,

  You finally realize you'll never see all the lights in the rain.

  ***

  A Time Piece

  Time;

  You feel it whenever you exhale,

  See its marks

  With each line in your face it scratches,

  As it drags you ever downward,

  And into death's cold hand.

  You hear it as an ever present tap,

  As a surface meets a water drop;

  But you do not notice what it means,

  You do not see that the drop that crawls

  Down the stained and gnarled stretched finger of past's hand,

  A hand that might easily be clenched

  Into a fist which, it seems to you, will never let you be free,

  To meet the dark and foreboding waters of the uncharted future,

  Passes a drop down a space as infinite as a moment,

  Which we know is our existence's exact point.

  A minuscule moment,

  That if you watch with your attention rapt,

  You might just see it pass before your eyes,

  Sparkling with a light which is a mystery even to the gods.

  For though none truly understand it in their hearts,

  All know time's truth in their minds,

  That there is only one time piece in that daunting clock's heart,

  Which was, is, and always will be the present.

  ***

  The Sky of Babylon

  Wondrous to behold,

  Remembered until the world's end.

  Such majesty above,

  That leaves you in awe.

  Colors of magnificence at night,

  That makes you desert daylight in delight.

  A glorious realm,

  That fooled even a king in a mad dream.

  For a fool he was that tried to touch

  The thing that always felt just beyond his reach.

  With a ladder did he start

  His journey to that land of the great,

  That diamond littered field,

  Which was beyond any powers he could wield.

  Knowing he listened to his own heart,

  He did not lose faith in his part,

  Even when a tower did no better,

  Made on a hill to reach further,

  Since the king knew not the truth,

  The brave fool did not catch it in the desert's breath;

  He did not know that even God is said to come

  Once in a while to that magical place;

  As the sky of Babylon is one of those things you learn,

  Is better seen from afar if it's to glimpse its fullness you yearn.

  ***

  A Book on the Shelf

  Half shrouded pages beckon,

  Behind their covers and with their mantles on,

  Obscured by the long abandoned homes of spiders and dust,

  Whispering silently that it's the touch of your hand for which they wait.

  Shabby or well dressed,

  Which one shall you befriend?

  It is true,

  The bright ones do draw the eye,

  But doesn't the half-dressed person

  Have the best of stories to listen on;

  Tales of pain and woe,

  Bringing tears to your eyes while deep down they excite,

  For in some grotesque way

  You feel like you've accomplished something for having 'lived' their horrid lives in a day.

  But what of the bright ones?

  For the harsh winds of life sometimes blow at the tops as much as the bottoms,

  What livid nightmares do they hold?

  Dare you glimpse the dangerously dazzling world of the pampered?

  Or is it wooing you have come seeking?

  To wear either the face of a hero or a damsel in distress and in need of rescuing;

  Or maybe to fill the shoes of an iron lady,

  Who somehow manages to subdue man in her own way?

  Or rather it's a soothing

  You have come to find with your hands shaking,

  That too there must be,

  In one of these things you open to see

  Through a tiny window into the author's mind,

  Peek into that fantastic land.

  Maybe it's none of these but a complete other,

  It does not matter,

  Since all of these and more await your senses,

  In the books that strain these unending shelves.

  ***

  Abyss

  I float on water

  That hides what's under

  As it mirrors what's above,

  A place which all those with a soul and a mind love.

  I stare at the ghostly lights,

  Wondering if, in their own nights,

  Someone is staring back from a distant past,

  Watching while, into the ether, their thoughts they cast.

  I look at that untouched field,

  Holding secrets it might one day yield,

  Hiding wonders that we can barely imagine near;

  A true last frontier,

  That will take us mercifully long ages

  To see and be free of our unknowing cages.

  With its billion bodies lighting the ways,

  It grows, moving with countless nights and days;

  It feeds our heart's restless nature,

  Having a place for each of us in an exciting old adventure.

  Always taunting,

  And sometimes frightening,

  It calls to me,


  Its silence crowding my mind with what might be;

  With its heavenly vault of knowledge and bliss,

  It beckons, that dark, unending abyss.

  ***

  Flesh of Stone

  A chain of gold

  Circles her neck in a loose hold,

  A true trapping of wealth,

  That never leaves without her health.

  On a window of ageless space,

  The master's hand crafts her face;

  Not leaving even a line to chance,

  The old fingers let the brushes dance.

  With a color as dark as the stars' bed,

  Black hair flows back from a face to which it led;

  While from a face that looks so white,

  And as hard as ice,

  Eyes that see from a time past,

  Stare a message that might always last.

  What burden had made her so cold?

  I ask in wonder of a story untold,

  While all around people say,

  Behold a woman of death's way.

  But I look with pity at all this fools,

  Who seem to fear those who follow their own rules,

  For I think if I had ever touched that flesh of stone,

  I would feel a warmth I seem to see alone.

  ***

  Dark Reflections

  Shuffling feet

  Reluctantly make their way to meet

  The stone ring,

  That hands grasp so strongly it makes the fingers sting,

  For the mind fears treachery,

  Even from its only home, the body.

  A head slowly makes its way,

  Blocking a part of the circle above made from the clear blue sky of day;

  Eyes follow tiers of stone,

  Going down to meet a darkness with the shape of the light above that is almost gone.

  Circle by circle it all leads down,

  The coldness not putting off the eyes that are drawn

  To meet that circle of night,

  And, with it, the dark shape that seems to lie in wait,

  Lit with its frame of a lighter blackness that, in the darkness, flows,

  A thing that looks like the spawn of midnight shadows.

  And it is that which finally makes the head pull back in fear,

  For it has seen what no sane mind should near,

  It has seen the heart at last;

  Since, deep down, all have known the truth since the days of a time past,

  All know it is only that thing that shows the real face of the mind,

  All know that dark reflection is the one true face of all humankind.

  ***

  River of Bodies

  I walk down the streets,

  Brushing past strangers;

  Unthinkingly do I slowly move,

  Avoiding the wandering eyes of everyone.

  I flinch away from their eyes

  If my gaze does clash with anyone's,

  I look away quickly,

  Knowing I might meet a hurt I shy away from weakly,

  Knowing I obsessively try to hide truths

  Inside my own heart's broken pieces;

  Ah! what a surprise it was to learn,

  That not only love but life could take a hammer to my heart in turn.

  I stumble towards my final days,

  On feet that are hurt like my cares,

  Too tired to even run,

  Dazed and bruised by life's unending lesson;

  Painstakingly making deeper grooves

  On previously trodden tracks,

  And not looking downwards,

  I sluggishly move onwards.

  When did the future become such a present?

  When did I lose that track on my way from the not too far past?

  When did I start to hate the word 'reality'?

  Or was it all misplaced vanity?

  How could I foolishly have closed myself, in terror,

  In dreaded fear,

  Frightened hope,

  To all the common banalities of the world around me?

  Not realize until it was too late

  The inevitability of my future's fate,

  As I refused to see clearly

  That same dreaded reality,

  Life's creeping normality,

  Oozing into my everyday.

  Though it's too late to have finally found

  The clarity of mind to do the deed,

  Though I know it's useless now to try

  And ask why,

  I question anyway if only because

  It's only now that I realize,

  I am just one of many forgotten faces,

  On a sidewalk that's flooded with a river of bodies.

  ***

  I'll Grant You a Shot

  I watch you standing;

  Always waiting

  For a passing miracle,

  That seems to you as your only hope.

  Watching you as you wait,

  On the edge of the warm light,

  I can't help but want to do something,

  Anything, that would stop your brooding.

  You stand looking up

  Into a thousand eyes hoping one would span the darkness in a leap.

  I think I understand,

  Where would fate have you look in the end?

  When you know you have fallen so low,

  And me not strong enough to let you know

  That there will never be a limit to how low;

  That there is always more bottom below.

  I know why you watch for that trail of brightness,

  Wanting to believe that you could push back the darkness,

  Believe that the world had changed its mind;

  Wanting to know you could find

  Some whole hope again to hand

  From the thousand burnt and broken ones you always seem to leave behind.

  I watch you searching the heavens for a kindness,

  Can almost hear you silently shooting wishes at the bright darkness,

  Can just feel you hoping for a shooting light in that uncaring night,

  A shooting star with a tail of light.

  I stand unseen by you as you wait in silence

  For that heavenly hope's passage

  Before the whole dazzling lot,

  Knowing all I would ever wish is to be able to tell you I'll grant you a shot.

  ***

  One More Mountain

  Dust settles on the track of dry land,

  Obscuring hopes they leave behind;

  The desert fields stretch below,

  Growing death they fear to know.

  They plod on,

  Under a merciless sun,

  On feet that never learn,

  And smelling their clothes burn,

  Behind the reek of the lines of sweat

  That turn to salt

  Below the pores they, in floods, part;

  One step is all it takes for them to start,

  Being too much of a coward to see beyond,

  And face an emptiness that in the end they shall behold.

  Just for a time,

  Long enough to die,

  They always stop;

  And let a part of themselves drop

  To be whisked away by the relentless winds of time,

  Carried away to the realm where dreams go to die.

  But they still move on,

  Back straight and with a new plan that forms like dawn,

  A new future that comes from nowhere,

  That mysterious place,

  Home only to the desperate multitude

  That in fear dare.

  Ahhh!

  What a wonder to watch

  A broken person's last walk,

  What hardy thing must make of such folk?

  Might it be fear?

  Fear that makes them refuse to look at what is near,

  And instead watch behind their tears

  I
n hope towards the disappearing horizon and all it holds.

  Or is it something more,

  Some basic instinct that they always bore,

  A thing they had always needed to brave life's rough wave,

  Since the days they called home a cave;

  Something that is more natural,

  That makes them more feral,

  That makes them refuse to give up,

  As they reach for a vividly imagined top.

  In any case,

  They never lose sight of hope

  As they slowly move,

  One step at a time,

  Towards where the sun goes to sleep at night,

  And dreams are said to come true for those that have the might

  To stay strong and cross an unknown land with the will it deserves,

  While always telling themselves

  That, if they could just make it to that self-prophesied land,

  It's more than their dreams they'll find;

  That, it's bound to get better if they could just keep at it 'till the end,

  If only they could make it over just one more mountain's head.

  ***

  Waiting

  Day turns to night,

  As it has done in all of past,

  While you pick up your face of yesterday,

  To play your silent role of this day.

  You always change your expression,

  But not enough to make the change run

  Its course through your life,

  Because you happily see,

  It will all come in the end;

  With not even a single deed,

  You know the heavens will shine

  On your own chosen fate.

  For what could you accomplish,

  That the stars won't give in a leash?

  So whatever happens in your days,

  You silently thank the heavens,

  While searching for any sign

  That it is finally time to begin

  Receiving life's small gifts,

  It's time to get what you asked for in your dreams.

  For is it too much to ask for love