The Match Boy

[phoebelll25]

The match boy

I saw the match boy once before,
As he kindled the stick so forth,
With slow deft movements,
Of priestly fingers.
The swish resound,
The flame redound.

The hazy ascending vapors rest
On heart of white rose and tenderness.
Ringed with misty vision,
He stands, a match in hand.
The face in mute,
A musing hue.

Glowing match lulls his aching soul,
Waning light stills melancholy throes,
Which, cast down by reality,
Finds an outlet at last.
Streams of guilt,
Receding trails.

My eyes enjoy looking in his face,
As he strove to keep the past at bay.
The faint snuff of a match’s flame,
Tarrying awhile, and fade.
The past is past,
And cannot last.

[phoebelll25]

Peddler on a train

There is a peddler selling maps on a train,
Lonely with one frail hand clutching the supporting bars,
Tired body slightly swaying away from balance.
Young peddler most soft, most suavely glides the passage way,
With bright and swollen eyes looking eagerly at the seated.
He does not notice the stare and glare of passerbys;
He does not sense the secret pact against him;
He does not understand that trains hatch menace,
And sprawl exclusion.
No one buys his maps, except strangers coming from elsewhere,
Venturers who share the same fate with him
Of being betrayed by their dreams,
But still dreaming of rocking the gilded wonderland,
Are they disappointed?
Are dreams disillusioned?
When they find out they are are only outsiders,
When eager and rosy enthusiasm is requited only
By turning of back,
When burns and brands that condescending gaze
Of passengers on the train,
Of walking men and women on the streets,
Of city natives hauled by assault of their radiance.

The full blaze of day has run into darkness.
Night again cloaks the sultry train.
The peddler dims in sight,
But the rhythmic jingle, with tremulous cadence slow,
Still gongs in my ear:

Buy on, please.
Accept me, please.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Above all, in each of these, I admire the sense of you, the observer, finding kinship with the forlorn or outcast or ignored. Bravo!

[phoebelll25]

Above all, in each of these, I admire the sense of you, the observer, finding kinship with the forlorn or outcast or ignored. Bravo!

Thanks for the Bravo. I just wrote what touched me.

[Trystan]

Have another bravo on me. Good poem, rich in texture.