Dusk Til Dawn
As the sun fell behind the trees,
My eyes beheld the sight,
Of her warmest orange glow
Upon cold, grey pillows underneath a blue sheet.

As she sank beneath the leaves,
Her deepest yellow warmth projected itself
Into my den of darkness,
And it became a room of hopes and dreams.

She radiated herself into my room.
I felt her against my cold, hard body.
Her insurmountable beauty made itself felt,
And I became alive.

(Is she dusk or dawn,
Or both or neither?
It matters not to me.
What use is time, for such beauty?)

Suddenly, the sun fell beneath the horizon,
My room fallen into pitch.
When I could look again,
All I stared at was darkness.

She was gone to me.
I felt love for a few fleeting seconds,
But night-time extinguished it,
And she was lost to me forever.

Sayem Rahman

Melancholy

"Why must it drift away and die?"
- 'Estranged', Guns N Roses

My body drifts upon the sea,
My muscles lie dead within me.
My eyes take in a bright blue sky,
Which fades to black
As quickly as candlelight's murder.
My mouth remains closed,
No air enters me.
All I do is stare, stare all my life,
Towards another life so distant to me.

I feel the water-level rising,
Pushing up towards my ear.
I care not for it.
I am past caring,
My mind preoccupied with the sky instead.
The water-level moves just under my face,
I feel it dripping into my eyes.
The sky begins to sway and dance before me,
My lungs filling with water.
Sinking beneath the waves,
I drifted and I died.

His wings are mere skeletons,
The feathers torn off.
He cannot soar on upwards,
Forever grounded.

A long black mane spread behind,
Fine strands now gone rough.
To hold and to stroke his hair
Is now an ordeal.

His limbs are split and broken,
Lying only still.
His blade lies upon the ground,
Just out of his reach.

He gazed upon the heavens,
A broken angel.
His eyes shed their final tears,
He a broken angel.

Sayem Rahman

To Darius
A malady grips me,
Not in body,
But in mind.
It is a disease incurable,
Something I acquired from my experiences.

I see people not as people,
But as objects upon which to inflict pain.
My mind is a perpetual red,
The heat murdering all lucidity.

Does this illness have a name,
Or does it travel anonymously?
Perhaps it has a multitude,
Or it defies all attempts to name it.

But I remember it all began,
When she, whose name brings me pain,
Wrought more hurt upon me
Than a thousand knives through my head.
Her non-communicative, implicit refusals
Left me melancholy and angered,
Sadness at yet another rejection,
Rage at the circumstances denying me satisfaction.

It is useless to talk to others;
They only say, "Thou art a fool, Hagen;
Think not upon her, but scorn the memory
And strive onwards - others await."

Oh that I could!
But an overactive imagination
Imagines a facetious love,
Idyllic, but untrue.
It torments me,
Until tears lull me to sleep,
Eyes too weary to remain unclosed.

Is this permanent anger,
This hazy red fog of rage,
A result of those torments,
Those devils that haunt me at night,
With thoughts of, "Could have, but didn't"?

It tears and rends at me,
This foolish and illiterate infatuation,
Which gives me more pain than pleasure.
Answer me, is pain my life's one joy,
Or did something higher ordain it thus?