Red Sky At Morning
There was a red sky at morning. It should have been a warning…
To say I miss you says almost nothing at all,
for my heart beats within this empty space,
and even when I close my eyes I see yours:
those inky pools of black within that face.
Red…
You drew me in with those eyes of the night
and I without hesitation did soon follow;
you filled my ears with words and sighs
and yet how can one’s heart be so hollow?
Sky…
I know you loved me in the only way you knew
and that what you told me came from the heart;
yet you only told me what you felt was best,
and this sifting of the truth can be such an art.
At…
You said you’d give to me both body and soul,
yet you wanted not only my heart but my head;
I loved you more for what you might have been
than I ever did for what you promised or said.
Morning…
You’ve lost everything except the memories,
but you will never be left completely alone;
you will feel me and my love surround you,
for the empty heart still beats on its own.
Red Sky At Mourning…
John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, “Snowbound in the House of God” (Memoirist). His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have been published in a range of magazines and journals, most recently in Blank Spaces, (“In Search of Alice Munro”), Literary Yard (“She Got What She Deserved”), Freedom Fiction (“The Mystery of the Dead-as-a-Doornail Author”), The Serulian (“The Memory Box”), The Montreal Review (“Letter from Istanbul”) & Erato Magazine (“A Day in May 1965”). His story, “Ruth’s World” (Fiction on the Web) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The author’s gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, is scheduled for publication.
