Ghost Of A Man Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

My love! You are not the man that I knew.
He was not in a prison looking through.
He was tender and warm and brave and true.

You are not the same man whose voice I heard,
who spoke tender and sweet with every word.
Such passion on your lips remains unstirred.

You are the ghost of a man now filled with pain.
The trail of sorrows has become a chain,
and I don't think you can break free again.

Your love was the tempest that made me wake
and turned abounding love into a lake.
I dived in head first where the surges break.

But tortured pavilions shine in your eyes -
two round universes of darkened skies,
with no galaxies of love to emprise.

You stare right through me, yet say you love me.
Your love is a desert; I am the sea.
You are in prison; I choose to be free.

Your eyes have deep roots that reach for the shore.
I cannot save you as I did before.
Hearts get rolled as pebbles forevermore.

And the waves splash over your darkened wings.
You cannot fly with somber whisperings.
O! In his cage, the lone canary sings.

The ghost of a man, the ghost of a chance
are the odious larks of circumstance,
the undulant river of happenstance.

I will always remember deep within
the springtime moments that we shared back then,
when I burned beneath the touch of your skin.

But the past is over; my soul set free.
Your love is a desert; I am the sea.
You are in prison; I choose to be free.