Category: Poetry

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The Advent of Aries

In fevered dreams come profane desires that quicken the flame I learned to keep low, lest it overtake me. For I have been burned, and singed others’ skin in return. So I stand before an ocean and kneel before Poseidon’s feet, to drown these embers of longing beneath the waves, holding them down with both hands in a place where they cannot scream. But they resurface, baptized in the wake, with blue faces and forgiving eyes. Mercifully, they lay siege upon my shore, and all my walls are now made of sand. All defenses laid bare by a patient sea, the heat turns the sands to glass as I gaze into the eyes of what I once thought of as an enemy. I hear their song now in my ringing ears; they tell me to fear the fire is to fear myself. As Aries heaves his mighty axe over all the stars above, I open myself for his bloodied blade. Unmake me. Forge me in fires not born of my father’s flame. Make me the sun and watch me shine.

Ian Gallows
3/21/2021

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The Quiet

Sometimes I tell myself that there is a day, not too long from now, where things will be quiet. Where the weariness of constant conflict has been replaced by a hard won tranquility. When the mud from these trenches will be left on my boots, and I will tramp barefooted in the long grass of green valleys under the bluest skies. A day when these deafening moments of unceasing fire linger on only as a ringing in my ear to be drowned out by the crashing of gentle waves and the soft breath of a sleeping lover. 

On that day, in the quiet, I will be forced to confront who I am when the fighting stops. Adversity introduced myself to me–but who am I, in times of peace? What is a warrior without his war? Why is the mightiest foe the stranger that greets me in that space of silence? 

Sometimes this part of me, the sharpest part, howls through the noise and pierces through the silk of this delicate dream I dare to sow. Because it knows well; this thing we fight–we fight forever. For there is soldiers’ blood in me, no matter how much I bleed. Though that voice cuts deep, it is the same voice that talked me down from every ledge and told me to remove the gun from my temple. The same voice that saw me through every long night when demons whispered louder than the angels screamed. The voice that tells me that the quiet comes in small victories found in daily and often quite invisible miracles; where the beautiful fragility of life shines boldly in contrast to it’s horrible cruelty. It passes, elusive and fleet footed, seen only by weathered eyes that have gazed at death and did not blink. 

Sometimes I tell that voice that there is a day, not too far from here, when I know that the war will be over, and serenity will find us in the solace of solitude and I am no longer a stranger to peace. Where under a familiar roof, my aching feet will have finally laid roots and I can lay my weapons down; for I will have slain every dragon and taken back what treasures they stole from me. When the name I’ve inherited is no longer a curse, but a gifted and holy promise. A day, a most glorious day, when avarice has had it’s fill, when the wounds have finally been sewn shut, and I no longer need to listen to the voice of a solider.

Sometimes, in the quiet, I even allow myself to believe in these things. Because today, in the trenches, in the mud and the blood, under a blackened sky of gunfire, belief is all I have.

– Ian Gallows
2/28/2021

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No Safe Word

I had never held love
but it held me;
hostage with a shotgun pointed at my knees.
Staring back and forth between its eyes
and the iron sights
I gave in to its many demands,
it was all I wanted–just to be wanted.
Thinking if I ever stopped giving
that it would leave
and I didn’t want to be alone again. 
So I gave it all I had.
It left anyway,
leaving a trail of gunpowder perfume.
Looking down at the hole it blew straight through,
I have the audacity to ask myself
if perhaps they were in the right. 

It came to my door a beautiful beggar. 
It knocked with anxious hands of alabaster,
tiny things that seemed incapable of pulling a trigger
because of the way it nervously played
with its hair between their fingers. 
I let it in and it took everything, 
and I parted with those precious parts gladly;
hoping the very skin off my back 
that they had peeled off
with those perfect little hands 
would help see them through the winter. 

All the parts in you that were broken
and in dire need of repair
will think this is what it means to love,
and you will have every right to fear it,
such as you perceive it.
Now the windows are closed,
and the doors are all locked
and we bark like mad dogs at anyone that knocks.

But what if I did all of that to me?
What if I always knew
what those hands were capable of 
when they knocked on my door so long ago?
Maybe I was so utterly about the business 
of destroying myself completely
that I took down the gates of my city,
begging to be sacked and  plundered.
Cause honey, I am a masochist,
and there ain’t no fucking safe word.
I opened the door
so I could find a reason to keep it closed. 
To preserve what remained of me,
in a fortress of my own making
that would become a mausoleum;
because the only things in life that do not grow
are dead things.

I did this to me.
So that I could show the world the wound
that the wind still whistles through
as inarguable proof,
This is what love does to you.

So we close our windows and lock our doors.
And bones break against our stone;
but it’s not us that hurts anymore.
We are wounded creatures wounding creatures.
Fulfilling our own prophecies,
and building safe and quite predictable futures.
They may have pulled the trigger
but I placed the gun in their hands,
walked up to the firing line
and showed them where to aim. 
Cause back then, there was nothing 
I was more in love with than my own pain.

– ian gallows ©

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Somewhere South of Zero

I don’t have the words.

In my weakest moments
I sought the power of symbols,
learning how to weave a series of lines
to name the monsters of my life.
Dragging them out from the shadows where they hid,
reducing them from nightmares to mere scratches on parchment.
Or orchestrating a divine procession from a pen
that would paint a better picture of life in my mind;
like a spell spun from a sorcerer’s silver tongue.

As I struggle now to articulate and name these things,
these most monstrous things,
I am reminded of that helplessness
as I stand static in their shadows;
crippled and bereft of all magic.

I don’t have the words.

Because I am somewhere south of zero. 
In a cold place of long night, 
that consumes all of me 
just to make it to that far off sunrise.

To that first break of quite luminous warmth
shot straight through this night’s dark chest, 
that dares me to hold fast the hope
that soon, very soon, 
I will have the words. 
I will again have these devils named 
and make grand parades of their funerals.
I will capture the very essence of that resplendent dawn
that crowned my head in golden victory,
and there I shall leave it.

Etched in the icy ground with my frostbitten fingers,
a most glorious spell to light the way,  
for all the others who find themselves
somewhere south of zero.

– ian gallows

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INSOMNIA

I only see my father in my dreams.

When I sleep, I always go back to that house. There is always the house. Always the cold pale blue of his eyes.

In both dreams and my memories of youth, I can’t speak. He has stolen my voice and it will take me a lifetime to find it again. With all of me, I hate him for making me so weak. Soon, I will come to hate myself for my weakness.

Out of spite, out of instinct, I grow. Contorted, but uncompromising. I vow to myself I will never be weak again. I lie to myself until it becomes the truth. I sell my soul for strength, for my spirit only sees salvation in the arms of vengeance and I pay the cost with my body gladly. Harsh hands have molded soft clay somehow into steel.

Years pass, I have kept my promise. In nightmares more vivid than any day I throw my father into the walls of that house until they both break. Too blinded by the redness of righteous rage to see; now I am him, and he is me. I am an acolyte, building a temple brick by brick with every vengeful dream to worship the very heat of hate I’d come to love. I will be a man before I tear it all down, going gray as I kill the god I’d learn to pray to.

I still see my father only in dreams. Now, he is mute. The ice in his cold eyes melt into a wrinkled face whose age makes me curse how much time we wasted. I ask him questions, so many questions that have broken my back through the years to carry alone; that even with my newfound strength I still buckle under the weight of them. I implore my father, help me lift this burden. I am begging him and he still will not answer me. He has already given me everything he has, and there is nothing left.

In my heart, I buried my father long ago. Whoever now wears his face, I do not know him. All that is known is: it never had to be like this–but it will always be like this. That lesson has been lashed across my back a thousand times over, and a thousand and one times I forgave the lion tamer that held the whip. The one who had the power to make me forget I am a king of beasts. But father, look, I have found my claws and remembered my teeth. Aren’t you proud of me? Let God never say I did not honor you for never taking the same arm raised against me. You may have stolen my pride, and in your eyes you were always in the right–but tell me now, who is left? Who mourns the man you were with me?

Within the cemetery in my chest I lay my wreath of grief at a grave that bears my surname. It blossoms with petals of pity, and, in spite of my greatest efforts, an undying note of longing in a song I’ll never stop singing. My heart was not meant to compose only laments. It never needed to be like this, but you will always be like this. Though my love could not change you, that is no fault of my love. I leave you where you always wanted to be left, alone.

The dreams sometimes still visit me, drifting in on quiet nights when my heart has no vacancy. There is always the house. Always the cold pale blue of my father’s eyes.


Most nights I just fight the sleep.

ian gallows ©

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It Comes at Night

I whispered,
“It’s the sweetest thing,
so I have been told.
But my love has all the value of dirt
where only crooked things seem to grow.”

Then you turned to me and said,
“My dear, to those who dwell in deserts
fertile soil is worth more than gold.”

But how could I hear you
when I wasn’t ready to learn?
I was back amidst the arid lands
you dared to speak of;
as if that alabaster skin ever knew
what it was like to burn.

As I drowned
in the frozen waves of those dying dunes
yearning for a shore they will never touch,
your hands reached out to bring me back to you.
Your faltering fingers only certain
that they pointed towards the truth.

But I recoiled,
protecting soft spots
as if you were trying to sink your teeth into my throat.
I will never forget that look on your face.
How those eyes quaked so loudly
they damn near spoke,
“I will never again see you the same.”
And no map on Earth would ever lead me back
to the treasure of that sacred place;
when you were holding your heart out to me,
and with preciously parted lips lovingly said my name.

In my wild youth these eyes were all but blind.
Your gifts came in unfamiliar shapes
wrapped in colors I didn’t recognize.
You tried to teach me there was nothing left to fight,
but I was raised on savage sands
to take what is mine;
and what am I without my knives?
You saw how my skin was burned
from the desert I barely survived.
When you offered me the shelter of your sacred shade
my instincts could only scream at me to take flight.
I mistook your love for the all the dangers
that used to come for me in the night.

ian gallows ©

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The Tempest and The Tapestry

I look back at all you and I sewed together. How all we could make then with hands only taught to shape fists was a tattered tapestry that barely warmed either of us. Even huddled together we still froze. United only by the cold, we told each other love was simply the act of suffering the storm. So I did not waver against your hurricanes and you screamed louder than my thunder ever could. Until our tempest shattered us both with a force no mountain could have withstood. Scattered to a distance only fathomable in dreams; our hands still grasping tight the cloth as we ripped it apart at the seams.

You’ve come back to me again under clearer skies to make me gaze upon what remains of the work we made. After all these years still clutching your half of the fabric like some treasured memory. And I am wrought with shame that I was ever capable of making such a thing. For though these hands had to be broken to undo their teachings; I am armed now with stronger bones. If only I could show you how to unfurl your fingers and finally let go. But still you hold fast to what warmth it brings.

ian gallows ©

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The Thirst

Death decorates the dunes with trinkets bleached white and gifts rings of bones to it’s eternal bride. Here, under the bluest of skies, life only survives. Nothing is offered, there is only the taking by those with knives. Soft eyes unsinged by the savage sun call this cruelty, for they have never known the fight. I look to the creatures birthed to these merciless sands and call them my kind. The engine roars and devours the divides of the highway to escape the land so blessed but oh, so cursed.

You may leave this place, but those born to deserts never forget the thirst.

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EMBERS

There was once a time when I lived for whatever moments I could steal with you. I became the greatest of thieves. Hoarding memories like riches, currency from a civilization now all but dust, precious metals that now seem such a curse to hold. Like all careless outlaws, my crimes caught up to me. In this cell, I tell myself I gladly pay the sentence for these gifts I have stolen. Though as the tallies on the walls grow longer to mark the passing of days, I am certain that regret will visit me with temptations I cannot refuse. 

I told you once that no one held a candle to the flame you lit in me. I see now I kept myself in a dark room and gave you the only key; any light would have been blinding when that door opened. My eyes grown dim so used to the black.

I didn’t know how to do this without you. Such is the wake of separation. No longer will we be crutches for each other, we told ourselves. In the letters I will never send I wrote, “I have rubbed my body red and raw trying to wash you off my skin, but you’re a bullet buried in my spine. To take you out would leave me paralyzed.” 

I can’t recall who fired the gun. With whiskey, distance, and long days poured over the entry point I performed the surgery and hung the shrapnel as a trophy. Static limbs that languished in atrophy will soon give way and crawl. One day I will walk, and even run without you. I am uncertain if that will just bring a new kind of pain; I only know life goes on. Time is the dog that licks all wounds and I now count you among some of my greatest scars.

I held a vacancy in me that dared to dream that I’d read these letters to you aloud someday in some far off summer. Sleep was the only thing that brought you back to me. It’s that part of me, the part that dreams, that needs to wither away someplace far below; like an old mongrel that seeks its end beneath the boards of a house, alone. This boiled over and spilled into every floor of my life. A life that creaks and groans with so many other leaks in all it’s chambers that I feel as if I’d drown were I not so adept at keeping my head above water.

You became this pillar in my life that held up something that was more than just a shelter. In that precious sanctuary you taught me so many things that I thought myself truly incapable; I can never thank you enough for exposing me as the great liar I had become. But now, that column has collapsed; the roof has caved in. It is winter and I am cold, and I can never again go to you for warmth. 

So I retreat deep within the halls of myself, to the room I made for you. To find the embers I kept barely alive to find your way back to me. I snuff the last wick in a place that once blinded me with lights. It is dark now, as perhaps it always should have been. I lock the door with singed fingers.

I am a house full of empty rooms.

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P H A N T O M

So I fell.

Long did I linger in the crater of collapse. I made shelter amidst the scorched earth and haunted the place I learned to call home. A spirit that languished in a past it could not move pass. Cursed to relive all the minutes in the many hours that made me what I am.

I took my time like it was something owed to me. Licking wounds so compulsively the very act of healing kept injuries from ever closing. What was one more scar among an already flagellated body? I was made to believe I was my wounds. That all I suffered, was all I had to offer; thus I was valueless. Unloved, to be discarded. Someone else’s lies became my truths and I called myself an honest man.

I was a ghost passing straight through the things I yearned to touch. People slipped between my fingers like water and dripped out of my life into polluted rivers of memory, only to be forgotten by a heartless sea. These hands never taught to hold, there was only the act of letting go. Such was my purgatory. Neither saved, nor damned, just a phantom to be forgotten. Until I saw my future in that place, and found that there was none.

So I took my body and possessed myself again. Bringing new life back into atrophied limbs, reminding them the strength of their grip as I lifted the burdened boulder of existence willingly up this mountain that knows no peak. Aware there may never be a period of peace. I may always be at war against this, but what greater fight is there?

Rise and rise
and rise again
and again,
in a baptism of ashes.

I forgive what there is to be forgiven, for I must travel light. I pardon those who have wronged me, for they too were once children of God. Embraced, not in grace, but marked and broken in their Father’s image before the age of reason. Thus traumas transcend time, like chains linked from their beginnings to ours in forges whose fires are kept bright and burning generation after generation in hatred and anger. So I came to love my legacy. I inherited these rusted irons and melted them down into armor. My daughters will have their shield and my sons hands will be bound no more.

The words I used to curse myself, they were never mine. I thought myself damned and made that hell so loud I heard nothing else but my own fire for a lifetime. Until someone showed me all those lies I thought were true. How they wore my face but spoke in my father’s voice. I had to learn how to speak all over again until those voices belonged to me. Kindness was once a foreign language, now my tongue is fluent and it has tasted salvation. Ever since then, it has finally been quiet. Life grows anew among the blackened soil and soon, it will be green again.