Sanctuary

Wreck I leave behind me.
Pain, so wretched, past.
Cushioned rock all round.
I, alone at last.
As I sit so cold,
Ghost upon the floor,
Locked from the outside,
My chilled, metal cell door.
No one here to share it-
This peace hard-fought and won.
All my defenses built
Now each fled and gone.
Peace and safety sought
From harshest mental pain,
While the sun of my lifespan
Begins, at last, to wane.
Knowing nothing soothing
Up to this chilled hour,
I know now again
Silence, and its power.
Angels all around me
All my life had stood.
Now I feel no person
Though if I wished, I could.
This poor ravaged mind,
Suffering so sore,
Brings me to this point
Where I wish life no more.
But the thoughts all hammering
My embattled mind...
I have been unraveled.
Gone: every mental line.
Thinking was a torture.
Now I do not think.
Into a mental void
I will fully sink.
This Time, however lengthy
I hope it will be,
I want to last forever.
My own blessed
My own needed
My required
Sanctuary.

Adam Scott Campbell

Heart

Tears unshed are locked within
One battered heart, worn out and thin,
While that one heart wages one war,
Striving to take back what it lives for.

Tears clogged, stopping soul-flow...
One beaten heart knows not where to go.
Former escapes no longer exist.
How is there strength with two broken wrists?

One shredded heart, choosing to reach
For any agent, said heart, will unbleach.
Now that warfare has left heart to die,
Where is the healing for a heart such as I?

I, Heart, with love inside me,
What can free me as I wish to be free?
It's happened before.  It happens now, too.
I lay myself in the dirt before you.

I, Heart, remember revealing my Me,
Hoping, praying someone kind would see
And reaching down, lift me up high,
Letting me live before my time to die.

How can a broiling heart decide
When it first told, and was told, a lie?
Why must one see hell to precede beauty?
Why must both coexist in me?

Now I lay me down to weep,
Ere I find my solace in sleep.
I will crawl over what I should leap.
Is this strong enough?  Is it deep?

Answers I leave up to you.
Heart laid out.
What will you do?

Poet, Stay

Here I sit, so quiet, so tense.
People all round build a word-fence,
While I sit, writing my way
Out of my dungeon-esque stay.
Tis a dungeon joyous, yet unkind.
Tis the wondrous, pained dungeon of my mind.

Papers I've prepped, that others might learn
Some of the wisdom I'm pained to discern-
Wisdom that has been written in rhyme
Wisdom I've gained over painstaking time.
These papers, this time, I give to friends unknown
That their gain may, for my sins, atone.

I sit at a table, small and square.
I've not yet ordered my goodly fare,
When waitress makes her way to me,
I am relieved, God's daughter, to see.
The war inside a poetical mind...
One writer begs a chance to be kind.

She asks what I will have to eat,
But having just sat in my Muse-ful seat
I tell her a water, and a soda will do,
Until I decide what I wish to chew.
She nods and goes.  On menu I see
An option for delicious, house green chili.

She returns.  I tell her the tale.
Green chili for me.  It never fails
To please, politely, my palate-in-pain.
And palate, pleased, soothes my fevered brain.
Walking to get here, as I did today,
Was done, that my sanity will stay.

Time wears on, God's daughters three
Sit at a table adjacent to me.
After debating my wisdom, I turn,
And ask them if they'd like to learn
Just what a poet's been up to, of late.
They smile, and say, "Sure, that'd be great."

Though this last is a paraphrase,
They take one sip of liquid soul-praise,
And then, curious, start to read.
A writer, this writer, will always need
To plant what might be called "word-seed"
In any soul who's bled, or will ever bleed.

Another server, not my own,
Walks by.  Still feeling that I'm all alone,
I ask her if she would enjoy
Poetical thoughts to bring her more joy.
I am perplexed when she nods very shy.
It's just me, after all.  I am just a guy.

A separate creation I read from a page.
I know that she may gain older age
For the change in her psyche that surely will be.
Words that come from the heart of me
Ever cause movement in those who will hear.
When spoken, my words can oft draw a tear.

Poetic words have all been let go,
The changes in her, on her face, now show.
I ask her if she would like to keep
My words written.  She again nods at me.
I hand them over, not knowing why,
But feeling, again, what it feels like to try.

Much time later, God's daughters three
Have each read what was written by me.
They tell me good things. I'm feeling much better
Than when I trudged here in the soaking weather.
Soon I'll again brave pouring rain
Twill further the job of purging my stain.

Tis good I was here on this planet today.
Help has been given.  I choose to stay.

Adam Scott Campbell

Sealed

Down in the dregs of my heart's remains
Glancing still deeper where Indomitable reigns
I discover hidden, unbroken I see,
The secret elixir, imprisoned in me:
Chance.  Tis mine, un-tethered and free.

Indomitable Me, I take it up,
Set to pour Chance into my cup,
When some gentle voice murmurs, "Don't."
I feel, though balm in elixir's shown,
To drink my assured victory, I won't.

Setting Chance down, turning to go,
Before me stands one whom I well know.
A woman, rarest beauty ever the same.
Never unhappy.  Never ashamed.
Ever believing.  Hope is her name.

Her hand reaches out.  I do not retreat.
The hand of Hope, and my shoulder, meet.
Into my eyes, she views my all.
I feel neither broken, nor strong, short or tall.
I feel just me.  Hope sees through my wall.

Then moving hand, from shoulder, away,
Hope reaches in, to Indomitable's stay.
Apprehension I feel for what she'll do now,
Though I have no knowledge of exactly how,
 Hope touches Chance.  Chance draws a vow.

And though that vow is spoken by me,
I know not what this vow might be.
I know that tis spoken with firmness of soul,
That tis what will enable me to reach my goal,
But what words?  I don't remember their role.

I may not remember, nor understand why
Those powerful words bring me nigh
To seeing my destiny laid out before,
No wall to block me, no barred metal door,
But I know there are great wonders in store.

While Chance rests in Hope's gentle hand,
I find this my soul again able to stand.
Upon life's path, without wall or shield,
While my Indomitable refuses to yield,
With radiant Hope, my banner  I'll wield.

With Hope by my side, our victory's sealed.

Adam Scott Campbell

Frozen Heart

Down through the ages a story is told

Of a great warrior with courage untold;

A warrior whose heart was turned to ice

Then was brought to thaw

Then re-froze thrice.

So much hurt the warrior sustained

At his heart place, that bitterness reigned

With hell-hounds upon his great heart trained,

That no pure-hearted maiden would deign

To reach inside to thaw him once more.

And so the great warrior, pained so sore

Froze himself down to his great core,

Awaiting the day when the Goddess Compassion

Would restore him in fullest fashion

To what he really was inside.

Perhaps you, like he, wish to be through

From all the aches and pains in you.

Maybe everything you feel

Will help you learn to hurt and to heal.

Perhaps you are warrior, too.

Look in the mirror,

Embattled You.

Adam Scott Campbell

Victory

Blade and pen switch hands once more.

Hope, herself, is struggling sore.

I have lost hold of the dream in my hands.

Drifting on seas and so far from shore,

Why should I try? There is naught at my core.

With pen warring, I write of aches deep,

All of my Me my dreams ever keep.

While ocean waves drench me through,

I keep swimming, wishing for sleep.

A deadly wish.  Naught but rest I'd reap.

Blade sleeping, muscles unfeeling

Desirous that one limb is healing,

Now it hangs down at my heaving side.

I tried.  I tried.  All of my psyche now reeling

Away from my soul, tenacity peeling,

All the while, pen ready, I fight.

Morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, night.

Enemy weapons threaten my body

I know what is wrong. I know what is right.

How much longer till I have no more light?

At times, Serenity gets me to stand.

Often, Beauty will gently command.

Their words galvanize the warrior within.

Whether I ever again see solid land,

For such wondrous kindness I never have planned.

For Grace, for Compassion, for Sweet Charity,

For each radiant angel helping me see,

For Balm Personified, I forgot how to quit.

Somehow their presence again makes me free.

I re-engage in the war around me.

If these visions are all real and true,

I know my endurance will never be through

But be they but wishes inside my mind

If they are but daydreams that I once knew,
Tis dreams keep me as naught else will do.
I'll believe in my dreams,
And victory, too.

Adam Scott Campbell

Consider

There was no way, no path, no reality
Within a suffering mind
To find escape out of the trap
That all of my Me would bind.
I'd lost my goals, my focus,
My knowledge of how to succeed,
Whilst amidst all of this dissonance
There grew from the smallest seed
A tiny sapling that reminded me,
All the while it grew,
That there was much, still, that, despite my weakness
I still knew.
I knew that others surrounded me
No matter that I was blind.
That all my life I'd been helped, aided, even carried,
That many had been so kind.
I knew there was worth inside me.
I felt the love for me.
I also clung to my conviction
That, although I could not see,
Each soul in existence
Whether searching for a sign
Also had inestimable levels of worth
Equal to mine.
Perhaps, despite the bondage,
Maybe due to it, too,
I oft re-realize
This worth lies, as well, in you.
Perhaps you struggle with tremendous pain.
Perhaps you have gone numb.
Perhaps you know life isn't fair,
Perhaps you envy some.
Perhaps you, also,
Embroiled in a trap,
Wish for some sweet gift of grace
To fall into your lap.
We have this much in common,
You, and they, and me.
Consider, for a moment.
This is Embattled We.

Adam Scott Campbell