Tag Archives: death

Feels

I want to feel what I feel

I don’t want to be told:

It’s for the best

It’s gods plan

Snap out of it

Or insidiously

Get over it

I need to feel what I feel

The well wishers are wrong

Sometimes insensitive

To my patchwork heart

Whose whole is filled with holes

I know change has come

I know, eventually,

I, too, will change.

While I’m here in this moment

So different from what I knew

(Took for granted)

I require feeling what I feel

Without excuses or platitudes.

I am human.

I want to feel what I feel right now.

Strange Headspace

Speaking words of comfort

for a man I never met

to people I didn’t know

Committing his eternal soul

to an unknown God

My phone providing a 21 gun salute

then Taps to honor the Marine

I read Seneca

while breathing clouds of wisdom

into the icy air

As I stood next to the vault

I realized I was standing by myself

Watching myself

Disjointed, disassociated, but grounded

like him.

How high the darkness

How high do we go in the dark?
Or is it always down?
The depths of anguish
Deep depression
Heavy grieving
What if the darkness is merely a threshold?
A catalyst for changes that must happen?
A step that isn’t there
To support our heart-stopping air
A shift in vision of what was to be
To what is in this moment
Chastised for arriving at rejection’s door
Huddled in the clothing of innocence
The wailing lamentations of a heart
Breaking open to possibilities not yet named
Climbing out of the pit of despair
To observe the mountainous task
Unasked for
Recognized at last, not as a destination location
But a roadside attraction, a must see,
With the oddest of bedfellows
Now clothed in the light of new understanding.

A Pilgrimage

Death offers the warm embrace of peace
A loving homage to the newly deceased
Life used to stay busy; feel overly productive
The spiral of drowsing is overwhelmingly seductive
No more errands or things to do
No more arguments of personal truth
With warmest lust on the coldest skin
An allegiance unfurls with the shifting winds
What was once taken for granted truly is sated
The breath comes no more from the body related
And yet as a witness to the dearly departed
A journey, a pilgrimage, a trail never charted
Speculation like specters gather for court
Dressed in saint’s clothing, suspended transport
the breathing world is holding hands with Death
leaving lamentations from the loved ones bereft

Blooming Pebbles

Each breath is a step towards Death

Yet we take for granted the breath

not the inevitable destination.

Remembering to breathe is acknowledging life

It is the act of inflating our lungs

with air that has formed words

of love

of hate

of anger and grief

Exhaling out our life’s resistance

to succumb to a fate

written finitely on the pebble

which blooms as our gravestones

in our final hour of mortal coil.

Campfire confessions

Grounding one’s heart
on the hearth of a campfire
recommitting branched souls to dust
smoldering with barely seen confessions
blazing with a lust to remain relevant
extinguished by time
returned to the mother

Rejuvenation

A walk in the wild wood timber
When the leaves have all blown down
The wintery wind whips omens
Of the King who’s lost his crown
No longer sanctified or honored
Or otherwise enshrined
The gloom embraces obscurity
Elemental slumber consigned
Deep beneath the gloaming soil
The spark of life remains
Guided by the ancient ways
A labor of growing pains
For when the woods again awaken
And the leaves return to green
The King will once again be born
His life, again, be seen

Behind the Blinders

To the face I did not know
The one whose name is clandestine
Spoken whispers, just below hearing
Your breath did not share my space
I never knew your laughter
Nor could I recognize your voice
Your eyes and mine have never met
But I grieve the loss of you.
The you were human, like me.
The you who had happiness and sorrow
The you who was quiet or loud
The you who was every bit as breathing as I am
The you who was every bit as worthy of love
The you who was every bit as alive
You were invaluable to the fabric of the Universe
I stand as witness that you existed
I attest to your right to dignity as a human being
May love now surround you with grace and mercy.

Widow’s Peak

She desires to be a widow

so bad that she can taste it

The casseroles and condolences

With open arms embraced it

She wears no widow’s weed

Nor tithed the widow’s Mite

With crocodile tears in her eyes

Their mourning her spotlight

When the flowers have all wilted

And the calls have all but eased

Will she then be grateful

That it was he deceased?

Note: This isn’t written about anyone in particular. It’s a what if.

The Ashes of Nobody

The ashes of nobodies

(No bodies?)

Are in a mausoleum

Placed on a shelf

Without ceremony

As if life repeats itself in death

Held without specific honor

No proof of ancestry

Tracing roots back to the dust

They’ve returned to

without a name or with

unknown cause or suppos-ed

forgotten or lost

As if life repeats itself in death

No words to dress them in Saint’s clothes

A hurried end without recompense

Humbly offered words of worth

They did exist here on earth

They dreamed the dreams of all of us

But the shelter line was drawn too high

The cracks they fell into, too deep

As if life repeats itself in death