One Last Ride

The city lights defile in blind sobriety,

A mournful sigh in our last midnight rush.

The stars are still in void’s entirety,

Can we entreat farewell in this abashing hush?

The engine roars impatiently, my dear,

Our hands abduce, our sighs bring us apart

Is silence the answer to doubts, I fear,

The poisoned arrow through my heart?

Vibrations kill our frantic disconcert,

A twilight breeze pervades the warmth of chill

We never meant our feelings to be hurt,

What will become of us, of golden past, what will?

Like leather pricks and stings our dull restraint,

Our fettered hearts electrify concern.

Flows of dilemma’s can no longer feint

The lost feelings we once were meant to spurn.

I feel your satin skin entice my eyes,

The flow of tears so meaningless and rash,

I can’t see them, where are those cobalt skies

The skyline of our love now turned to ash?

But then the grave groan of the creaking door,

That speechless farewell you had left behind,

Like a rusty chime I could not ignore

Was then intolerably past confined.

Your shadow vanished in that morning mist,

With words unspoken, gazes in the wind.

This stigmatised cheek you had coldly kissed

Is like a scar of one who twice has sinned.

The fever of your vacant seat pervades

And the old Ultravox record surrounds,

We were dancing with tears, a love that fades

Is echoed by the radio’s voice and sounds.

Dedicated to Clemi, a good friend of mine who always believed in this poem and insisted that I should finish it. I have not lived this experience, it's pure fiction, but the melancholia and sadness of this last ride was inspired by the song "Dancing with tears in my eyes" by the Ultravox and by a James Joyce short story I read years ago.