Tag: life

Fragments 2

Wasn't great today
But what is there to do,
Lay down ready to die?
Leave it like days do too.

***

Playing up the sham,
You know it's such a shame;
They'll make your name shimmer,
But only when shown tame.

***

Living through changes 
But we remain unchanged
In love, for the danger 
Lies in growing estranged.

Reflections on how I got here

"Beware this reckoning,"
Glares a spectral pair of eyes.
Blood quickens in frozen veins,
Stricken as though paralyzed.

Leering back from inside 
The mirror, a crack which grows
The distance facts drift at one's
Insistence; then slackens, slows.

And crawling over shards,
Wounds are all to show for wants
Slicing black weals of static
Lack of any real response.

The daunting pain of silence
Spawning deranged interviews—
A prison with no orders,
Visions thrown to trinkets' truths.

Worst is when it's within 
The first sentence of doom speaks.
Overpowered by black bile,
Loathing and foul wrath it wreaks.

The dreadful sensation
In the head made manifest:
Seizing trips that mark the sick,
Squeezing grip of panic's press.

Heaviness dimly drapes
Every limb, as though submerged 
In water's lips; every move
Murmurs, stripped like a soul scourged.

Beneath this awful weight,
Seething, clawing to maintain;
While fearful of this deep hole,
Here the soul can greatly gain.

It's a cage, and no skill
Engaged will, it confounded
Me; but blessed with room to pace,
They dressed patience around me.

Basically life support
Is the grace the dice produced
To hand me a family
Withstanding my sorrow's sluice.

To think they looked at hell
Without blinking, it took more;
More than courage, more than faith,
The surge of strength love looks for.

Looming death, fate diseased;
Assuming the weight of both,
How they faced it despite dread.
They allowed my glacial growth.

They paid for my prices 
As I laid, a dying mind,
Withered body torched in hate—
Delivered by a fortune's find.

They believed in a time
When even I am able,
Condoning this path to shed
Loneliness's black label.

It was pure chance to meet 
Him, to endure and advance
Past privation and piss-drunk
Starvation's soul sunken stance.

My family props the sky
Up while hammers drop on nails;
And my head has turned up for him,
Ready to earn grace's grails.

Am I a wretch reborn
By a lucky catch? Of course;
Without either my life's in
Doubt, but strife still stalks its source.

His presence builds me up
A pleasant hill to defend,
But misaligned spheres can soon
Find my spirit brought to bend.

We've grown this better sense,
Sown medicines, worked what found
Subsistence, a miracle
System sheer as sculpted sound.

Our one-room made of smoke,
Blunt and bespoke, fleeting home;
In a flash what saves me could
Crash like waves of frothing foam.

I cannot guard, protect,
By forethought or by power,
Against illness, accident,
Killing events' furled flower.

There's much I can't make kneel,
A touch could steal all I care
About. My dear, meekly tread
And scout ahead. Best beware!

Talking with Muscovies

Muscovies are delightful companions.
When I approach they hum and purr 
And vibrate like little engines 
Cooling, then settling down.

When my muscovies are enthused,
(They're not my muscovies,
But I'm their person,)
They pant aloud as if laughing.

Norm is a conversationalist;
He'll announce himself even when hidden.
George and Percy sneeze their greetings
Softly, while father Franklin snorts hello.

Steve and his girl, Zebra, are quiet,
But he'll nod and puff, she'll sweetly coo.
Brothers Edgar and Loyalty
Hype each other up with chants.

Patch squeaks and Mama gently trills,
As do Millay and nested Helmet;
And when he's surrounded by friends,
Granite erupts in exuberant laughter.

I’m going to sleep

I'm going to sleep—
Every day takes this slope
While we're here. Look! the poles:
Even the stars list hope.

What does a dream hold?
Often therein dread looms,
And what we feel hard melds
With soft inside lead rooms.

What can a dream give?
A background where dooms verge
Upon something more vague
When thought and void merge.

What it takes to wake 
Up: no more than to walk
One step further, to work
For the space/time we talk.

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.

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.

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.