Poetry

The Importunate Penance

written by: Vern Palliser

His insides seemed empty. She, frozen and intoxicated by grief.
What was life and love without the splendid arrangement of togetherness?
Slowly they drifted, like origami boats on a pond obeying the call of the enticing wind.

New days were opened, without splendour, life revolved around them, without colour.
Their breathing ceased. He became a machine. She an object.
Enclosed by the befriendment of norm, they continued their every move.
A waltz of lifeless dreams and diluted poetics, they moved, step by step.
Daily waking, yet never emerging from their somber enchantment.

Nonetheless life seemed unsatisfied. It longed to hone affections once lulled by its occasionally unsavoury resolve.
Like a picaresque where the villain becomes the saint, it conceded mercy to the oppressed.
Both souls slowly begun to wake. The air of understanding imperceptibly circling the untrodden plains of clemency.

No force stronger, no void more eternal, a chariot of hidden intentions drew them within the distance of a lover's kiss.
Entwined. Unafraid and surrendered to each others glance, they vowed.
All life was, all love could relinquish, was but a shadow of the union that they had lost.
Yet what once seemed a tyrannical scourge, was now but a distant sigh in the resplendence of their elation.

Vern Palliser

• Tweet
• Share