Tag Archives: existentialism

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.

Nova

Those eyes so oft transfixed
by only things they lorded over
would but on occasion dane
to dine on the extravagance above;
a passing glance at the moon,
a brief aside with the procession of stars,
the fascinating contemplations of ephemeral comets,
or the longing gaze into the darkness of an eclipse.

Long ago we could not afford this appreciation.
The stars were savage campfires,
the moon a wrathful god.
Comets would herald the end of man,
and an eclipse would end all else.
We could do no more than look away and feel safe
or look on in horror of what future we baited.

Stronger minds however were not sated,
and shackled those monsters to reality,
tearing them from the bosom of imagination,
so the world above could be a safer space to ruminate;
as long as we could make sense of the light and dark,
and still find comfort in the ground.

It was good,
until the darkness was swept away,
and all that is was light, be it day or night.
The sky, no more a blanket
but a bright bag zipped up tight
while we fought against it,
none of us ready to die.

Leaning in the Corner at a Dance Recital

I’m not sure now why it didn’t break,
beneath the days – turned years – turned decades,
beneath three children, four grandkids,
beneath a 50 year marriage that almost ended twice,
beneath two tours in foreign nations,
beneath coffins filled with pieces of his heart,
peppered here and there while he lived on.

Beneath countless bouts with viruses,
an embarrassing number of hangovers,
and one exchange with polio.
Beneath all the nameless failures;
the guilt, regrets and losses.
Beneath all the great successes;
the pride and the accomplishments.

Beneath every memory whether faded or strong,
it held…
he leaned on his cane to watch another memory made
                                                                  …it did not break;
and for a moment he even looked rested.

Sunny Skies

The sky burns
while my broken parts yearn
for a downpour I’ve earned
and continue to earn, again and again.

The seasons move to music
that my ears refuse to hear
open only, expectantly, for the sound
of that great rain coming down.

The sky burns
while my broken heart yearns
mangled in ways difficult to discern.
The pieces that would not – should not fit
forced into compliance.

I need the sky to break as have I
to shatter
crashing down upon the space I occupy
until all the pleasantness is nullified
and I again can feel at home;

That place beneath the rain
where broken things are fed to grow.

Polarized

No
is a trimmed tree
groomed grass
and smooth round rocks
choreographed through shadows and sunlight
so the errant eye can rest
where they may not.

No
is a deep breath
to fuel questing thoughts
that birth a flood of words
crashing against the levees built by time
slowly chipping away
what years could not.

No
is a thin line
then many
a stroke of color
careful cut stone
the complexities of life expressed
when words will not.

No
is a new way to know
what no one knew
or could have known
before they were shown.

No
is an excuse to say yes.

Choices

A turmoil off in the distance,
far away and behind me,
sends intensity over his coat;
even the dew drops stand on end.

How far that gaze must travel,
the sun, the world set alight;
all the big things that begat the little,
all the little things that begat the big.

Against the dawn his silhouette remains,
captured by some concern that is not me,
while I ponder, what could it be?
in all the world, what could it be?

But the song of now plays strong.
Cold air, low clouds, joyous trees;
the both of us passive members;
in the ambience of that ensemble.

A loud break cracks behind me,
his head drops quickly to his breast.
Dew shakes loose from the antlers
like diamonds discarded to the ground.

He raises his leg slowly
as I raise my sights,
both of us anxious;
for the end that is coming.

It strikes like lightning.

C

Define emptiness.

Take from it that terrifying essence
the void-
              leave nothing that was
and replace it all with truth.

Your truth,
as well as you know it.

The shape of the earth,
the way light works,
right,
wrong,
what direction to face-
when all is lost.
Find any truth to place there
and keep it from getting cold.

That chill-
                is cancerous.

Though you can take on the abyss
none can suffer its existence
                            in the periphery.
Reflected sarcasm
the deep inhale between bouts of laughter-

cancerous.

Lost

Find hope among the crested waves
                                                    laughing
searching for a shore they cannot see
but knowing…

Find courage among the giant beetles
                                                    raging
their short lives only deadlines
but fulfilled…

Find love among the sober stars
                                                    burning
giving of themselves unconditionally
but radiant…

Find purpose among the moments lived
                                                    spooling
the ebb and flow crashing, waning
but thriving…

Grow Gray With Me

The fog that hides the day as night retires,
shades of sunlight grasping for purchase
struggling in undulating swirls,
hoping to find in ambiguity, some purpose.

The rising darkness from the depths of fire
billowing into the night to throttle the stars,
like open mouths cradling soundless screams
or the profound words of a dead man’s memoirs.

The way a tree feels when bound to expire,
stripped of all its lush extravagance
the machinations of a world that brought it life,
now turned to break it beneath those same elements.

The slow pyrotechnics of stagnant air’s attire
sustained in sanguine starlight while time drifts away,
held like the pot won in a game of marbles,
careful hands celebrating their display.

The decisions we unearth in quagmire
seeking more an end than a right or wrong,
transfixed by distant familiarity
the difference lost in the chorus of the song.

The way our histories resurface as satire
courage marred by fear, the bold now timid and pale
those truths that hide in the present revealed
once pitted against the rest and placed on a scale.

The thoughts that in twilight give cause to perspire
when the permanence of absence is paramount,
trickling through the cracks in our confidence
though it is only ourselves we need to surmount.