Tag Archives: death

Passenger Side

The radio is blasting static;
the sound is the feeling,
and a warm glow nearby
retreats from the cold outside
while I remain cool, congealed.

Broken is the world around me
        this is all that there is.
While the state of my mind
is two hundred yards behind,
because ignorance is bliss.

Suspended like a house of cards,
above all the fuel and coolant
just waiting for death to catch sight
of this lure that could not fight;
a bold offense to the brutal movements.

By the time my mind has found me,
there is nothing it can do.
Whatever this is, it won’t be fast,
suffering until at last,
I am able to join with you.

Tomorrow

waits for no one – it but exists
          and that is enough.

           I accept the challenge
though it grows everyday.





I raise the sails each morning
      towards that great whale
                  not to hunt it down in vengeance
but to explore its yawning wake
                until at last it turns on me
            and speaks solemnly, “no more”
      having grown too great a future
                      for my sails to endure.

Trinkets

Three coins strung together around my wrist;
the toll for love is always at hand,
as many paid as has been collected.

One coin gifted for the love that defines us;
the love that plays beyond the boundaries of time,
and inspires us to pursue it more.

Another owed for the love that has been taken;
always too soon, should one live to see it gone,
but owed the same, for the loss costs us no less.

A coin borrowed for the love that remains;
languishing there, just beyond our horizons,
yet no less worthy of what alms we offer.

Last, the bracelet itself, held for my daughter;
who may have forgotten that love is still here,
but still kept safe, for here love will always be.

The Fall

Gone

   

         gone



thin clouds

                the song of sunlight
            muted without the praise of a place to settle,

      kneading itself into the billowing cotton-

   like panic trapped in a parachute

hurtling towards the ground






                           wondering

                     where it all went wrong.

A Chair Unburdened

Over me
          overwhelming
but from its end-
impartial.

Alone, we are so many things
between beginning and ending
together, we are absolute horror.

From my end;
down here,
almost close enough-
the bridge between us
is devastatingly indecisive.

From its end;
hanging there,
it remains stoic-
                  impartial.

The weight is all on me,
until at last it is not,
gifted above;
for we are nothing unburdened.

             If I can no longer be
                        the warm support
                  that allows the muscles to cool,
                the bones to settle;
I’ll at least be the platform on
which to stand.
            High enough to hang their troubles
      and let them swing,
                as they did decades ago in a box of sand-
                      impartial.

Though kicked away;
                      discarded,
          I am satisfied to resign
                      having served well
in my time.

To My Younger Self:

Enjoy the silences;
the waiting,
slow words.

Not having anything to do;
the leashed phone,
the unknown.

Bruises, cuts and wounds;
the bitter cold,
the searching soul.

The night without street lights;
uncivilized sights,
sunlit rooms.

Enjoy the world
as it was meant to be;
sober, subtle and unexplored,
because in the end
it will turn on you;
bind you in rope,
flood your eyes, your ears,
and leave you with no place
                        to call home.

Watch

“Do you see, against the city setting,
roiling white clouds of terrible purpose;
from here, not but cotton dabbed in darkness?”

“It could scarce escape me as the day drains,
the glint of windows shook, reflected back;
like orphaned laughter so briefly sustained.
I can hear it at the ends of my hairs,
though the sound itself is too far away.”

“That sharp line dividing the horizon-”

“As if the sky had broken itself cleanly,
the seam rushing toward us high and above.”

“The path to here from there is far indeed,
the seed of hope that flowers before us
was meant to bring prosperity to light,
but found the air up here far too hostile.”

“Conflict is the only air we breathe.”

“Sure, but conflict alone wouldn’t kill it.
Where at first it writhed searching for recourse
it now thrives, a phoenix reborn.
Such horror, and yet beautiful ruin.”

“May its glory rise to outlive us all.
The impact should be around here, shortly.”

“Time enough to live with ourselves at last.”

Safe

The ebb and flow can tossel the soul,
leave it stranded or dragged against the seafloor.
The wax and wane can define us in shades,
illuminate our faults or hide our virtues in shadow.

The peaks and valleys can break our spirits,
emptying our lungs or swallowing our perspectives.
the coming and going can be more than the destination,
overwhelming anticipation or uncomfortable obligation.

The systole and diastole can lead us to violence,
feeding the red rage or draining from us our essence.

Peace is only in absence,
the place that can only not;
where no harm can consume you,
no fortune deceive.

Anticlimactic

There was not much to contemplate
he began to ruminate,
here at the end of his life.

He had thought these last moments
would be grasping at threads;
his mind, desperate to live on,
flooding him with thoughts,
that must be thought
before the final curtain drops.

And yet his mind was blank,
left only to think
about the irony
of that blankness
filling itself with self-awareness.