The Dark Joy Of Despair

By Stephen Alexander North

"The Dark Joy of Despair" is a captivating and thought-provoking collection of diverse poems. 

With its seamless blend of genres, this captivating poetry collection by Stephen Alexander North promises to both thrill and challenge readers. 

Transcend conventional storytelling boundaries with verse rather than prose, featuring the story poem 'The Revenant and the Bell'.

Read now and become enveloped in The Dark Joy of Despair. 

Florida Man Writes!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Alexander North
• Release date: Jan 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215103098

Stephen Alexander North

Stephen A North is the author of the Dead Tide Series, The Drifter Series of books, and a number of short stories.  He is a Florida native, has a BA in English Literature from USF, and is a former Army Reservist.

Book preview

The Dark Joy Of Despair

In remembrance of youth

And the elusiveness of truth

Aching to find love

Without knowing the way

Or the why

When the love I did understand

Died

All-consuming

Addictive pain

Your memory and your name

I reveled in defeat

The dark joy of despair

Incomplete

No peace

Not knowing how to love myself

I thought

That was only to be found

With another

(completed on the fourth day of the month of August, 2022, a lazy morning)

In the gloom of my room

I lost myself in the lines

And emerged sometime later

Downstream from love

Unabated

Hazy, crazy

My thought process

Glitched

Unsated

When I understood

The smeared crimson stain

All that remains, of us

Are we

Only a fading memory

A distant roar

A wave reaching toward

Some far shore

Standing alone

On the other side of grief

All that remains

To punctuate

To render meaning

To continued existence

Falls short of words

Empty gestures

And eternity

And all you meant to me

(completed to the accompaniment of thunder on an afternoon, this fourth day of August, 2022)

This, is not me everyday

The dark of my room

The lock on that door

I'd rather be on this side of it

Curled up on the floor

Outside poignant darkness lingers

Icy fingers

In memory to punctuate

Continued existence

Not enough

But eventually

That feeling goes away.

(completed, long after it was started, on a Monday, the sixteenth day of January, 2023) 

Je t'adore!

I adore you

You are all these wondrous things

A dream with wings

A heart that sings

A door to hidden places

To distant lands, exotic

Erotic heated embraces

Slopes, valleys

To shadowy bedewed clefts

For impassioned trysts

Riding together to a joyous crest

Eruptions, explosions, geysers

To celebrate and paint

Your petaled enclosure

A valley to pleasure

To explore

And that’s just one way

To adore

The entirety of you

(completed after evening fell on Thursday, the fourth day of August, 2022)

Stream/Scream of Conscious/Conscience?

Is this a stream or scream

Of conscious or conscience

If there is the right music

To take me far away

From here, downstream

From inner screaming

To the sounds

Of angels dreaming, thoughts

Of how beautiful life is

With sweet freedom

To just listen, live

In moments like this

(completed today from yesterday’s thoughts, on Monday, the sixteenth of January, 2023)

Dell'infinito e dell'eternità

(Of infinity and eternity)

Of you, and of me

There’s no end

The connection’s beyond

The word ‘we’

With words I speak

Of what my eyes see

Doesn’t matter whether

You answer or hear me

I know you know

The depth of our love and chemistry

We are music, passionate fury

Molten lava, furnace heat

Truly eternal, into infinity

Our joy lives on

Flowing, dancing

To the echoes of our song

Two hearts’ beat

Two bodies entwined

Forever you are with me

Here, my love

In my arms and mind

(completed on a cool, grey, rainy Wednesday, the fourteenth of September, 2022)

I was born of a dark dream

Unspoken thought

Fantasy or memory...

It matters naught

I am a receptacle of many things

Sometimes, I give

Others, I take...

With mouth, lips, tongue

A cock, pussy...

A portal without lock

I can make

You cream, scream

Live your own darkest dreams

With mere words on a page

And none of it need ever be real

Just something you read

And only you and your imagination feel

(completed on a late Friday morning, the sixteenth day of September, 2022)

I woke with I am a receptacle of many things in my head, and the other words were spooling out. Had a vague idea where they were going, if I let them. Hazy arousal was behind it all.

Così è stato chiamato, ‘Mattina Di Legno’

Thus, it was named (from the Italian), ‘Morning Wood’

With hazy arousal

In the morning I grow

Thick, engorged

By a lazy notion to sow

To kiss, then

Plunge into your depths

To plow your fair garden

To thrust with abandon

To feel, be me at your portal

To know joy, to share laughter

Moments of bliss

And sweet memories

Oft treasured

This unmeasured life with you

Loving ever more

Replete ever after

(completed an hour past noon, with rain coming, on a Friday, the sixteenth of September, 2022) 

A Carnival Barker’s Autobiography

Come here and see

My hollow laughter

My hypocrisy

Or is it more

A laugh from the stomach

A secret smile through a lie

An arched eyebrow of a tale

A peek behind the curtain

Watch a freak, an oddity

Certain to fail

When they count on you most

When you gave up on them