Poem 12

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Kept from sleep again last night

By the sound of chimes

I sway

So far below heaven

So high above hell

Frost creeps up

The trunk of my spine

All is blackness through these holes

Of my eyes

Just the wind in my skull

And the wings of her crows

They perch on the gallows

They have pecked me clean

And made a chime from

My bones

NOTE: Also written on the page: “B’s comment: a diver, not a hanged man, think about it!!!”

Poem 11

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

In this temple of shadow and mist

There's a window

In the floor and

A door in the ceiling

There is no knowing

Am I standing still

Or running or kneeling

NOTE: the two last lines have been scratched out (can’t make out what it originally said) and the lines of the poem have been written next to them.

Poem 10

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

From bloom to gloom

Our love like fire

Consumed

We burned our bridges

Furniture, clothes

Hair, flesh and bones

All too soon

We ran out of things

To burn

But while it blossomed

Our love

Was like a flower

NOTE: Also written on the page: “B. This is us. T.” and a name “Barbara” (I’m guessing, can’t quite make it out, different handwriting) next to a heart.

Poem 9

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Until that time comes around again
The shadow falls on this town again
It’s barely evening
But the shadow falls on me again

No one will miss us
Our faces inked black
They’ll sell our things at the flea market
They’ll never call us back

So she left with them
They’ll wine her and dine her
We huddle naked in this alley
Nothing’s for sure

Fir needles tickle
We bathe in rain water
All the way to the ocean
The memory of the slaughter

Until that time comes around again
The shadow falls on this town again
It’s barely evening
But the shadow falls on me again

When I’m awake I’m barely alive
When I sleep I have two hearts
Your heart and mine
Your two hearts and mine

Poem 8

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

I wish it would shatter

Like glass under my heels

Just like a sheet of ice

When I close my eyes

That’s how the mirror feels

Oh mercy

Thousands have gone missing

Beyond the labyrinth of me

When you’re lost

You’re lost in your own company

NOTE: There’s another poem on the page as well: “In this hall of mirrors / built by liars / I’m a pale reflection of myself – Pool.” There are also a couple of drawings, a face of a man, some fir trees by the water (maybe?), and a strange face with a long nose and round black eyes.

Poem 7

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Mist like death

Mist like a lover’s breath

Rolls so soft and cold and wet

Memories met for the first time

Secrets whispered

To find a long lost doorway home

Or be led to parts unknown

And forever disappear beyond this veil

In her dreams to prevail

Poem 6

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Your eyes were so cold

When you watched me go under

You were sitting in the boat

I floated down

To the darkness like a cloud

From a shark bite

I breathe out

My life with you

The currents wash me away

I let the currents

Wash me away

Poem 5

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

My mother told me to no avail
If you play with shadows
You grow sickly and pale
And forget all the wonders
The sun can unveil
Beyond the shadow you settle for
there is a miracle
Illuminated

NOTE: the three last lines have been underlined and there a note saying “E’s favorite line, a long talk with him about the meaning, no changes but keep in mind for another time.”

Poem 4

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Frightened

Of the shadows of the deep

He challenged me

To a duel

I indulged him

For he did not know

That beyond the lake

He called home

Lies a deeper darker

Ocean green

Where waves are

Both wilder

And more serene

To its ports I have been

To its ports I have been

NOTE: “rewrite?” has been written next to the first stanza.

Poem 3

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

I go underground
Follow me underground
Everyone else has gone there
Down to the ground
I’ll take you underground

They chased a mystery
They are a mystery to me
And you’ll think that of me
When I tell you my tale

What we bring with us
Sorry secrets and awkward lies
Wet matches
A yarning for overcast skies
Everything else down here

Has been stolen so many times
Everyone who walks down these steps dies

I go underground
Follow me underground
Everyone else has gone there
Down to the ground
I’ll take you underground

Poem 2

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

Divorce me from all that’s sane

Screaming, mute darkness

Descend on this frail frame

I drown in fathomless black space

Light never scratched

The depths of this domain

I see not; yet nothing could be worse

Than the shades

My mind calls herein

Alone at my own wake

The unraveling of reason’s skein

NOTE: It says “THE DARK PLACE” below the poem, and there’s a line from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence “Some are born to endless night.”

Poem 1

As the photos are a bit blurry, I’ll transcribe the poems:

We pillage and whore

Hauling our loot

We swagger down alleys

We don’t say please

The town is burning

We set it in flame

We are the fire

That’s gone out in your eyes

We are the maggots gnawing your heels

We are the rain trickling down

From the hole in your ceiling

We are the ants inside your walls

And under the boards of your floor

We are eating your house

We are the sharp rocks under your knees

In front of the altar

Where you are kneeling

We have no morals

No guilt, no qualms

We don’t give a damn

The sewers are clogged

Filled with waste

The water is rising

We’ll make a ship out of

Your naïve, broken dreams

And lay siege to your sanctuaries

We are a ravenous horde of rats

We are the fangs and we are the beast

There will be no more admiring gazes

No more courtesies

No more gardens in spring

We are the rising waste

And you will be a drowned king

NOTE: The first stanza has been crossed out, and the sheet had been torn up.