Heartache

The Relic of His Love

~ Iyan Igma

His scent had faded from the shirt
Like the perfect trust kids place in
Parents and the beauty of dawn
Consumed by harsh, sunlit din.

I’ve lost the relic of his love,
The musk that let’s me dream he’s here.
So I go to his apartment,
Hoping wildly his voice to hear.

I go onto his bed to lie;
His smell hasn’t begun to ebb.
I hold his pillow tight and think
Of my love tangled in life’s web.

Maybe when he returns and rests,
Some lingering traces of me
Will make him think of weeks alone
Without my zealous company.

Perhaps a little whiff will make
Him crave not the flesh but the heart
And soul which love him so, like his
Musk teases me when we’re apart.

This Rag

~ Iyan Igma

I clutch this rag close to my heart,
For the memories it imparts
Are what make life dear to me,
While filling it with misery.
This rag is all I’ve left of you;
You’re both covered in mildew.
Mold covers you, it, my soul.
Death I cannot decontrol.
The grime and squalor here
To my view scarcely appear,
Since no reality’s as severe
As consuming loneliness austere.
Home is where the heart is–left,
And I’m homeless and bereft.
I wander through the blind streets
And not a human do I meet,
For demons wear egoic masks.
Sympathy’s too much to give or ask.
Snowflake’s plagues fall everywhere,
But a little piece of threadbare
Wool gives off more lasting heat
Than the cardboard o’er my feet
And the newspaper on the bench
And me. Fate is a heartless wench
That takes what it wants and leaves,
Clueless of the ones who grieve.
Without you all my treasure’s gone.
Why work? Why live? No God. Alone.

Lake of Love’s Brimstone

~ Iyan Igma

I already know I’m worthless,
Do you have to rub it in?
Sé que soy el gran fracaso,
And I wish I had never been.

Damn the mams that gave me suck,
And damn the womb that gave me life.
Damn all my useless intellect,
And bless this liberating knife!

Damn my frailties and emotions,
And damn the truth that’s worse than fear:
You could never bear to love me,
But somehow you could hold me near.

Bless the bosom, lips, and thighs of
The heartless woman I loved true.
Although you’re guilty of my death,
I could ne’er make myself damn you.

Ye blesséd Sons of Perdition
Cast to hell from heaven above,
Rejoice ye know not the lake of
Fire and brimstone of mortal love!

Five and Twenty

~ Iyan Igma

A. E. Housman warned me
But could not prepare me for you.
How could I heed the sagacious,
When you’re too good to be true?

Here now I’m five and twenty,
Having once been twenty-two,
Despaired from giving my heart in vain,
And hopelessly smitten with you.

And now my heart is bleeding,
And this fantasy can’t be true.
I don’t think my age would matter,
Thirty-five or sixty-two,

My heart would be laid open
Hoping for mercy from you.
I’ve no “pounds and crowns and guineas,“
Only love can I give to you.

How could you be satisfied
Just to be cherished a lifetime through?
I wish I had more to offer,
Like I wish to remain with you.

You’re marvelous and irresistible,
The most amazing woman I e’er knew!
And though I know it’s hopeless,
I know that I’m in love with you.

Hear now my sighs a-plenty,
But take me in your arms anew.
I can hurt and bleed tomorrow,
But for now let me treasure you. . .

I’ve loved these wondrous weeks—
A spring flower that early grew
Ere the last frost of the season.
Eternally I will miss you.

How can I e’er love again
Without recalling loving you?
And so it will ne’er be bittersweet
But sour to live without you.
How shall I feel completed
Having lost heart and soul to you?

Obelisk at Babel

~ Iyan Igma

How innocuous we thought it
When so long ago we did start
To build our love a monument
With brick and mortar of the heart.

The hotter that burned our passion,
The faster the obelisk soared;
Seemed Mercury the bricks fashioned
While Hephaestus’s furnace roared.

And soon we overtook Babel,
And, oh, how mighty was our fall!
Lo, now we are dispersed rabble
With no comprehension at all.

How sweet was our soul’s communion;
A light and beauty that did lend
Happiness to oblivion.
Love’s language lost, blown on the wind.

As the Thornbirds

~ Iyan Igma

To think that I have loved as
The thornbirds on the vine,
Pure and sweet and passionate
And utterly sublime,

Beyond the wildest senses
Which I could never comprehend.
But such intensity comes at a price,
And my song is at an end.

The thorn in my chest, I can’t breathe;
So here I now die alone,
My soul having such a love
Beyond what could have been known.

And I would take three thorns
In my chest to feel again
The sweet intensity that filled me
Since my tragic love began.

In Intimate Moments

~ Iyan Igma

Why did you whisper foolish things
When pressed tightly to me in bed?
That you loved me as I loved you,
And the perfect kids we’d have bred,

And how it was we’d make it through
The thorns of our rose garden path,
Of a glorious life with you,
Of all the happiness we’d have?

Was all of that feigned emotion
And lies that sounded good right then
In precious, intimate moments
With my heart beating on your skin?

Were you just trying to deceive
My gullible trust which longs for
All of these proffered fruits, having
Never wanted anything more?

After all, you never tell me
Those things unless in passion’s throes,
When I’m vuln’rable and open
And my drugged mind no logic knows.

Perhaps because I fantasize
That perhaps at last I’ve found
The love I’ve looked for all my life
Who makes my happiness abound,

I try to ignore all my doubts,
Since I love you passionately,
And tend to think that those were just
Your inner feelings being free

For once, but I will never know
Now, since we will never more be,
And all that I want has become
An impossible fantasy

That once seemed as close to my grasp
As your warm body in my arms
And the feelings of our love past,
Which are now just remembered charms.

Of the Passion That Once Was Ours

~ Iyan Igma

How do you think we could be friends
After such moments as we’ve shared?
That would be a torture that the
Inquisition would not have dared

To employ, for it has mercy.
Imagine us meeting as friends
Talking calmly while depriving
Your body’s lush touch from my hands.

And you would laugh while I would think
Of the moans you made bathed in sweat,
And try as I might to pretend,
Fiery eyes won’t let me forget.

Me? Content? While you’re behind glass
And I’m behind electric bars,
A cell made of my emotions,
Of the passion that once was ours?

A Cardiologist

~ Iyan Igma

I thought you a cardiologist,
Trusting your opinion from the start,
Letting you cut in two my sternum
And cut my vital rib cage apart.

You clamped my veins and my arteries
To give a bypass because they’re blocked.
You cut out my heart for a transplant,
Saying the old one was sick and pocked.

You left me something rotten instead
Which has brought me to a tragic end.
You took my heart full of love for you,
And then just wanted to be my friend.

As Nebuchadnezzar

~ Iyan Igma

O, that I were just an ass
Eating the wild grass in the fields
And that all my tragic flaws and
Weaknesses to you weren’t revealed!

To be as Nebuchadnezzar
Without sense and senseless love, too!
But I am a star crossed lover,
Wishing to die ere losing you.

I’d lief take leave of my senses
And survive by my raw instinct,
Than feel our love’s bonds be severed;
Your love and life to me are linked.

I’d rather spend those seven years
And another seventy-two,
Rather than being rational,
Perpetually missing you.