Month: January 2025

All we know’s falling

All we know's falling
Into troubled feeling,
Every minute filling
Conquest's dreams with kneeling.

When one feels alone,
Two depressions align:
One, the separate ailing;
Two, the need for a sign.

Belief is crucial
In the face of crushing
Monotony, cruising
Along with bleak rushing;

And if you believe
In the soul that belies
The sordid facts below,
You can let lives be lives.

About Us

Struggle's wage daily
Denigrates so wholly,
One slogs away dully 
For sustenance solely.

But what is lifestyle
If inertly cold steel;
Rather be a leaf: still,
Humbly held, yet genteel.

How many millions
Of years flown like gallons
Through waterfalls, hellions'
Unstoppable talons!

Lives beyond number,
Each unique in timbre,
Awake as an ember
Slumbering in amber.

About C

A pain to linger
In the darkness longer,
Yet possessed by languor
Which proves itself stronger.

Longing grown severe,
Desperate for some favor,
Praying to the savior
That things not get graver.

We want to go home,
A dream that could becalm.
Teach this one the anthem
To be a true bonhomme.

There was no fortitude, no wit

There was no fortitude, no wit;
When I was sick there were demands
To spend a decade in the pit.

Only despair was definite
As sanity slipped through my hands.
There was no fortitude, no wit.

An awful, furtive reprobate,
No other form of fool could stand
To spend a decade in the pit.

On the cave's wall I saw it writ:
Lonely are those in a foreign land.
There was no fortitude, no wit.

Then I was blessed with an intimate,
And it had all become so much sand
To spend a decade in the pit.

It's all for him that I commit,
To climb together for something grand.
There was no fortitude, no wit
To spend a decade in the pit.

We are nothing and nothing more

We are nothing and nothing more:
A thought perhaps, a breath of air,
Contingencies that shift and tear.

Strong or weak or rich or poor,
All are the same who know the fare,
Know we're entitled but to tour
A thought, perhaps a breath of air.

Those who are solid find their core
Is as part of a fleeting share
Of something renewing; so why care
We are nothing and nothing more—
A thought perhaps, a breath of air,
Contingencies that shift and tear.

Something Sure

Something sure is not so near 
Hunting thoughts grasp its allure.
Seeming rather very far,
Streams of wrath come curse the cure.

Despairing to make some more,
Who cares will break, squirm, and stir
Daily grinds year after year
Praying to find something sure.

Helmet’s Return

Now we see why Helmet was gone of late,
And it comes with quite a revelation:
Helmet is a girl! Had she gone to mate?

She has her nest in the same location
As Mom did, at the laundry room between
The AC unit and wall adjacent.

It's perfect, shortly before this we'd seen
Her reappear amongst this family
Who hatched right there on that very same scene.

Many little soon-to-be progeny
Beneath her downy bosom incubate,
And we pray she's rewarded handsomely. 

The second generation to propagate
Since we began to keep tabs on our friends
Is upon us; it's a difficult wait.

It's still months until brooding season ends.
I pray they will be kept safe from the drakes,
Or if birds-of-prey-disguised death descends.

Although anxiety for these ducks makes
Up quite a chunk of my expectant thoughts,
To see them flourish my waiting heart aches.

Little puffs of down all around her dot
Her nest where we counted somewhere around
Eleven eggs within this most blessed spot!

Who can wait to hear that heartwarming sound—
Ducklings cheeping in perfect innocence
As they swarm and skitter across the ground?

This season continues with cryptic hints,
The swapping days of warm and cold belie
Their secret day of hatching's imminence.

Newborn mallards have hatched somewhere nearby, 
Perhaps on this first day of the new year.
Soon Helmet's chicks will poke out and arrive.

Though nothing more of the future is clear,
I dream of them joining us in growth here.

After the Loss of Miracle the Duckling

The sun descends before a mere
Mortal could ever fathom when,
And that's what fills humans with fear.

Black, indelible ink; the pen
Proscribes loved and unloved while I
Feel the true fear of change again.

These nearly-limitless things vie,
Each one of them so small at birth;
Yet some it sees fit to deny.

Lives inestimable in worth,
Newly born; why do some survive
While others get but days on Earth?

Why is it while they were alive
The bloody blade reaped thereupon
And nothing done could help them thrive?

I hear the doleful singing swan
Echo my thoughts. I must praise.
Even after, new young will spawn.

There will be more ducklings to raise;
Even those we've lost will be kept,
Remembered my remaining days.

And beyond when my windows wept,
They have their niche that they've occupied;
I'm a moment to intercept.

In all my childish, misty-eyed
Attachment I forfeit most sense,
For this is how they've multiplied.

Citification built the fence
Which separates and shelters me.
Life becomes unreal and intense.

Competition is anomie
To one with precious much to lose;
Life and fear in synonymy.

Such is the case for one who views
Constant struggle through rationale
And the tragedy it imbues,

But how could an animal scowl
At the fate of life, its one gift?
They don't see things as fair or foul.

They only know the life they lift
From the seed of their forebears' soil
And the changes of seasons' shift.

They're not averse to earthly toil,
Their being, both parcel and part
Of their place in this mortal coil.

As such there's never loss of heart
For them when tragedy befalls
Their life, the ever-forward dart.

An indomitable will calls
Their spirits onward with elan
Uncomprehending of our galls.

These ducks have but a single plan,
Which is to be what they will be
And to nurture their little clan;

To follow their ancestral tree
With peace wild and docile at once,
My darling ducks, this family.

So even when misfortune hunts,
I trust these ducks will persevere
Through both dreary and merry months.

They could be my teachers of cheer,
Wary for their safety and yet
Unknowing existential fear.

They simply take what they can get.
They remain happy and content,
Though looking out for any threat.

They're unafraid how much is spent,
It's all for life and it's all fair.
That's how nature builds its ascent.

A million generations' wear
Strengthens the very DNA
Which brings all creatures up to bear.

Very little controls the sway
Of fate. But, as their parents had,
They grow confident with each day.

It's like their souls are armor-clad,
Uncrippled by softhearted pain
That never fails to drive me mad.

Nature is indifferent to strain.
Prepared for total loss, it gains.