Poetry: Songs of Death

THE BOOK OF REVELATION

The love of life is gone
     darkness touches its inner soul
     filling remote corners
     with its velvety, numbing pain
Emotionless
It moves as a puppet
     pulled by the twelve strings
     of the dark believers
It experiences anew
     round objects with sharp edges
     colors that smell
     sounds that taste
Fillings its empty mind with
     new thoughts
     new ideas
     a reformed purpose
The soul, now blackened
     does not return
     from out of the ash
     from out of the dust
     whence it came.
Smiles caress the faces of the dark ones
     their numbers grow
     as beings convulse and die
     the stings are jerked and pulled
Their powers increase

Time passes by
Impatiently awaiting the Son
     to lash our from behind its
     heavy curtain
Waiting to split the darkness
     and bathe eternity in
     Awesome Light.


INCIPIENCE*

Go now, O soul
     tread upon that land
     follow the footprints if you can
     leading toward the unknown
Worry not that your prints
     track not
     lost in the many
     that have gone before
Follow the trodden path
     hardened by centuries of
     perpetuate use
Think not that your footprints
     obscured
     seem washed aside like the
     millions of lives that have gone before
Wave upon wave of years
     swirling past
Fleeting , spectral shadows
     cast by the fading light of
     an eclipsed sun
     waiting for no one.

The future remains a vision
Dreams awash in haze and clouds
Muted by the millennia
Of past suffering and silence.

Follow the scarred, treacherous route
Upon whom fewer have traveled
Where pristine, outlying reaches
Remain unmarred and unexplored.

Search now, O soul
Search for the meaning
     in memories lying dim
     in the recorded pages of time
     waiting for those who seek
     bereft
     as solitary prints upon the sand
Tread upon that land
     follow the footprints, if you can
     of incur to make
     your own.

Go now, O soul, Go now.

(*beginning to exist or appear; in an initial stage)
 

SOUL FLIGHT

In consummation of life
     it drives itself through the barrier
Clashing with the stark cold
     beyond the frozen sphere
Casting effervescent tendrils among the
     ensconced ecclesiastic
Sparkling against that
     icy, black backdrop
As some precious diamond
     prematurely crushed from existence.

Hallucinogenic origins
     of the universe
Revealed through mist-clouded embodiments
     of a life now extinct
Reality awash
     in waves of time
As a new version of life
     gestates and grows
Until time and space themselves
     wink out
Lives join and
     become one
Bounded by the Glory of
     the Immense Being
Whose face is masked
     by that of the Lamb.

Woe to those who
     make the journey unprepared
For the path is dark, long and
     traveled unexpectedly
Death reveals the key to life
     and the key is simple
Yet how often it is ignored
     by those who understand.


SUPERNOVA

One quick flash and
All is over
There is no sound
No deafening explosion
No cries of anguish
Only looks of curiosity
Followed by one brief instant
Of apprehension
An instant between arrival
Of that terrible light
And the cosmic radiation.
Hundreds of light years away
An alien nation lifts their eyes
Toward the heavens
A glorious nova
Lighting the sky
Even by day
Alien astronomer focus
Their sensors and recorders
On the spectacle
Unaware
That they record
The final death convulsions
of a once mighty world.


INSOUCIANCE*

The flame of life ebbs
And as his eyes close at last
     in death
He sees himself more clearly than he
     ever has before
The floating grayness
     and the retched scream that marked
     the final transition
Have faded into dull nonexistence.
All is peaceful
Tranquil
Blissfulness overtakes
Pain, anguish, fear
Debilitating emotions
     that have plagued him through life
     have been stolen away
Vanished
Set to ease by those emotions
     he searched for all his life
     yet never found.

(*lack of care or concern)


THE JUMP

Go ahead,
 Jump!
You think it looks so deep, so dark?
Have you really looked?
Do the walls look as solid as you think they should?
Go ahead,
Bend down and touch them
But not too far
You must be ready
When you go over the edge.
Well?
What do you think?
Not so bad, eh?
The surface is kind of soft and warm
And do you see that small shimmer of light
Way down there?
That's where your journey ends.
Your path is predestined
Only one way to go
Once you jump.
You've no real choice at all, you see
And the light does look inviting
Doesn't it?
You feel a little calmer?
But I can see that
You're still scared
Don't be embarrassed
It's natural
But fear is something
You have to overcome.


HOLOCAUST

Appropriate
For the disintegration of life surrounding
Darkness
Ruling over existence
Latent sins
Arising continually
Out of the shadowy paths of past consciousness
Duty calls to lay such sinners rest
But death, which is death, as life is death,
Remains forbidden by ancient laws.
Vengeance acquiescent
Unacknowledged
The cunning past retains its haunting
Over all how have touched
Its fevered, spectral hands
Claws
Which decay when trust removed
In agony
Live or dead
Changing consciousness
Actions
Thought
Remaining vivid
Revengeful
Influencing as the present
Not yet laid to rest
Or more so
Seeding the wind that reaps the whirlwind
Only death, which is death, as death is life
becomes less harsh and cruel.


DEMENTIA

Time
The embryo floating in its glossy fluid
Has no notion
Nor the old and feeble minded
Whose neurofilaments
Entangled among themselves
Flash signals here and there
In a vain attempt
To rouse the life
That once was theirs
Ticking by
Gaining speed as even it
Grows old
Perhaps perceiving
What human flesh cannot
As it runs from something
From which there is no escape
But for death
Or races toward that
Which we have yet to know
Something glorious and
All-encompassing
Picking up speed
In an anxious attempt
To grasp it still sooner.

Time seems against us
We sit
Confused
Doubtful
Unable to change
That which cannot be changed
As leaves tossed about
In an autumn breeze
Floating on the winds of time
Willing or unwilling
Going where e're it blows
Cast into wretched piles
To rot and decompose
Or
For a few

To soar with the wind
Sensing new freedom
Excitement
Experiencing the wind
Becoming part of it
To change
Explore
Belong
Achieve
To live life
To its fullest.

And when that time comes
When our own neuronal cells
Flash incoherent signals
To themselves
To be inwardly content
In the knowledge
That time
Never ceases
With the assurance
That the confusion will end
In death
And once again
Time will be our friend.
 
Time
As the wind
Will carry us aloft
And show us all
We yearn now to know
Yet cannot comprehend
The enemy of the dawn
Will prove itself eventually
Too be an ally at twilight
By showing us that our lives
No matter what we've done
Will have been important
If we've spent them loving
And caring
For each other.