Anthology II—English

Casimir Laird-Berrard
3 min readMar 26, 2021

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i was left alone, in the cold

nights went by, slowly — with echoes

of raindrops on a shattered pane

succeeding, cascading, falling in waves

and shivering tides — i shifted

to absence, dropped the scales

unbalanced and diluvian the clouds weighed

on my heart and the sky — you kept me

tethered to your heart and though

it is now gone my chains still bind me to loss

inescapable — your specter follows me

wherever i hide, assuming your story has eyes

i find repose and recluse

i mourn — you

are the shadows beneath my feet

and the sun too, the chimes and wind

you surround me, your ghost — darkly

exudes the pain you brought with you

and bittersweet is the spectacle

of your infusion — the living

you continue to grip slyly, as vines,

when will your branches

suffocate my foliage — the last leaf fallen

that your void will be cleared at last

that i may carry

and you may rest

slowly in the streets you drifted

thoughtlessly, as jellyfish

following the currents of some unfelt ascendance

guiding you as magnets

drawing you in a maelström

inexorably —

to the river banks, the gothic bridges crooked

and yet somehow syntonic

darkened you roamed

aimlessly, your ego awash

with the invisible fog, the filigree of

ever-thin unpolished gold

surrounding you — draped

like a sheet over broken statues

and shattered mirrors, puddles no longer reflect

and neither do you — yet you keep advancing

in circles though somehow further away

from home

under black clouds you wandered

listlessly, exit the stilted glow of streetlights

enter pain, sharp, tracking you down

through — around —

and encompassing the alleyways that seem

brighter almost than the neon-lit boulevard

torpor ensues — your strained eyes

pine for the silence of a blotted-out blue

too long left in the warmth

of a summer midday

the clouds forever now

are warped

and the sky, too, convex

is dimmed,

as a mirror in the mist

the blur in my eyes, that of the pane

confused, blinded,

cracked, fractured, growing slivers

of imploded aluminium and a glassen void

i no longer see us

as constellations, coursing alongside the sun

days past no longer seem as the milky way

a long streak of light, now oblique, wavering

as though by some shift in my tired gaze

oh, i no longer see the stars

one by one they are distorted

out of existence

the curved sky no longer lets them through

to me, to us, you no longer seem

as Libra in the sky, rather a single dying light

eclipsed by the northern star

and the new moon

forever

lost

through the pane, across the courtyard

a tree — fir or pine, who knows anymore?

anyway it has been travelled

at length, the minutes since its uprooting counted

as needles drape the cold floorboards

this is the season, the façade, the view

one will have of the house, and the mood, and the days

the banalities of the living room shall be

tinted, infused with a light savour

of winter and warmth — a pale surrogate

for a family, for a world,

the tree locked behind the double-paned windows

pines for the candour of a frank winter frost.

Also read more of my writing on my Medium and tilde.town page.

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Casimir Laird-Berrard

admirer of well-styled texts, Zhuangzi, the Imagists, and Eno. inquiries and inquests at casimirgb@gmail.com