like other men, I have no time
to gaze past the stars
their light is a chimera, it holds
no promise

it is not death we fear
we have become adept at hiding pain
in deep corners invented to comfort souls,
the sentimental myth that the eyes mirror
love and passion
was born to mask that ultimate suffering
we hate uncontrolled tears
no one can peer at the secrets of other eyes

the universe is upside down
it spins and churns as time recedes
there is only just so much of it
we accept the new dizziness, yet
three days hence, kaleidoscope
visions tempt us, nothing is simple
within the unending variations of truth

I speak the secret language
the earth yearns to share
everything else is noise
pain was my mentor, my lesson was
to listen to the rhythm of death’s wail

some say fear is the artless fading
into forgetfulness when no one will remember
no child or friend to select albums
from our talents, loves, success

these words are the trump card
to battle death’s final rocky path
a slow, seductive approach to taint our life
with the lure of eternity

we are sad to be little and invisible
alone, but not always lonely
we wait for our deaths
until then, we strive not to wither
on the inside, where the words
to be shared are born from our silence


when nothing matters
[2012.18.5…a]



 

in another kind of obscurity
before the round of sleep
weightless, I float away
and filter the darkness
while rain acclaims the clouds

thus I am the ocean’s fertility
and sink into the deep
with turbulent parade
where currents and bleakness
erase the pain of life

now, suspended in fate’s impurity
nothing matters but sleep
immune to devil’s games
to weep against solace
that time never offers



within the dream
[2012.16.5…a]

 

a sordid smattering for survival’s satisfaction
a shattering of the mind, childless, hopeless
she collects collectables, anything having touched
her body, brushed up against her hands,
her heart and soul were broken, her spirit buried
years earlier before god took her first baby

the house shrunk under the weight of her folly
pizza cartons, dirty laundry, used paperbacks,
china dolls, moldy uneaten apples, never-to-be-used
diapers, the piles artistically arranged, color coded
the once useful with the utterly useless
she poured her life into arranging junk, feeling
its moods change as decay welcomed the new
anything to forget the odor of a newborn babe

in a broken muffled whisper, she chattered away
intoning rites and prayers at the rooms cluttered
with stuff her husband too grew to love, a strange
duo suffering the lost essence of tomorrow, together
they spoke little, habits form easily when pain
can only take more lives, happy words burst
against the silence like a child’s imaginary cry
in the death of night when candles
have burned everything into blackness



broken
[2012.15.5…a]

 

Here's the take from the actual fifth line, "today his gait stumbles and halts..."
The first poem used another line because I needed to fit around an existing poem written earlier this morning.