Compounded Memories Of Life Poem by Benjamin Wampler

Memories:
the odes of life
the last throes
belonging to the human mind.
Fickle creatures that
just as readily inflict pain,
as they do pleasure.
They are the fickle being that fade away
yet as they fade
they do not go gently into the night
instead they return
embellished with new details.
Or new ones come that,
added as if in after thought.

Memories are the wolves
black and white
that chase each other around
as though after each other's tails.

Memories of happiness:
the gentle touch of a friend
offering compassion for the wounds of the heart.
The race of exhilaration as paper tears,
the warmth of the hearth
as it bestows it to protect
from the cold of the snow.
The taste of candy
after a night of looting in Halloween

The white wolf is the victor of some races
guiding the mind to happier times
bestowing love, clean of its thorns.

Faded memories:
forests hued two shades darker,
faeries of light added to them,
peels of laughter, bright as a summers day
brightening them.
Memories of shaded areas
hidden from the suns warmth.
Areas that conceal the hermits
belonging to the kingdom of animals.



As though fate has some plan,
a plan that changes with time,
a plan that has no end;
the wolves form a gray
and the gray is only shown,
through the intervention of another.

Memories of faded pain:
Pain blocked
Pain repressed,
Scarring left to cover,
The hate of water;
Water bestowed to the body
Searing the skin.
yet as time goes
The memories are repressed
Only readied in after thought,
By the gentle mention
From another human.


Memories are the wolves of the conscience
Guiding us through our present
Through the use of our past,
Letting us repeat mistakes.

Memories of compounded lies
Lies layered upon each other;
in a desperate attempt to hide the truth.
Opaque lies seen by all,
though even their opacity
is hidden from their creator.
Lies revealed in short time
given no time to fester,
like some insidious wound.

Wolves that given the chance to,
will devour each other, sometimes
leading the black to victory;
cruelty affluent.

Memories of recalled pain:
the twitch of the muscle,
the yank of the thorn,
the twist of the worded dagger,
the tear of flesh,
the smell of fresh blood,
the taste of iron in the mouth.
Pain that lasts,
covered by tissue freshly formed,
hidden by a scowl on a visage.
Pain that penetrates the soul,
ravages the mind,
and impales the body.
Pain that spreads like an infection,
ruining all it touches

Yet the wolves continue on,
like some ever form of the ouroboros.
as soon as one is eaten,
beaten,
it returns to the field,
and the chase resumes.

Memories of relief:
swept up by the arms of a doting mother
protected from the cruelties of the world,
of the word,
hidden from those that’d guide one down
the path of the stray.
guarded from the dark shadows,
thrown up by a mind that never stops;
protected from the terrors of the night
that are drove away by burly father.

As the wolves race after one another,
like star-crossed lovers
driven by fate to harm each other,
they widen the space between them;
and encompass more in their jaws.

memories beloved:
reminders of what is lost,
reminders of what is kept,
reminders of oaths held,
and oaths squandered.
They recall pain given freely,
and pain taken to help others,
memories of selfish gain,
memories of stopping
the loss of a brother,
memories of repairing the harm done.

Yet occasionally the wolves will stop,
as though driven by some force
to comfort the one they run wild in.
The lean forward and lick the cheeks;
stealing away tears that would run wild,
trying to comfort.

They hold back their memories,
the memories they consumed in the monochrome jaws,
occasionally they may let one slip,
to try to cheer their child up.
Yet they soon return to their chase,
glad that the one the frolick inside of,
is cheerful once more.

Memories forgotten,
memories fondly held,
memories lost,
memories of love,
memories of the family,
memories of the deceased,
memories that take the form of wolves,
black and white;
to guide the child that formed them,
through the life ahead.