3 Poems by Benjamin Blake

Fields

Desolate remnants
A tattered ragdoll
Snared in a barbed-wire maw
Dried lipstick on the rim of a broken root beer bottle
Shards scattered amongst half-buried bricks
It’s here where I sunk to my knees in desperation
Clutching a fading photograph of my father
Beneath the dead oak tree
I prayed
To a god that was too busy to listen


The Patron Saint of the Hopelessly Lost

Endless miles
Barren fields are all I see
Long dead trees
Faded tattoos serve as reminders
Of whom I used to be

It’s too dark
To read the welcome sign
Only warnings
The dashboard is flashing like an ambulance
I am filled with a sudden sense of dread

Saint Christopher never left me
Until I lost his medallion


False Dawn

Dreaming of vast plains
Step by exhausted step
I make my way toward the light
That faintly hangs in the eastern sky
It is not wise for one to try and calculate distance and time
This could well be an impossible quest
What you seek stays too far away
If it even exists at all

Too far now to turn back
The journey’s all I've known since I set out as a young, eager man
All that's left to do
Is just keep taking step by exhausted step
And hope that someday I may reach my questionable destination
With my heart intact

Bionote

Benjamin Blake was born in the July of 1985, and grew up in the small town of Eltham, New Zealand. He is the author of the poetry collection, A Prayer for Late October, published by Hammer & Anvil Books. Find more of his work (and photography) at www.benjaminblake.com