Ah!  Timor, timor mortis,
     Mortis conturbat me!
          Ah! Ubi sunt?
          Descenderunt!
     Mortis conturbat te!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Fifteen Minutes at a Dead Man’s Desk

No one wants to clear his desk away
The computer still open but the screen dead black
A sheaf of files still needing his attention
Rainbows of Post-It notes around and up

His trusty old Radio Shack calculator
The client-filled, smoked-plastic Rolodex
The reading lamp still angled exactly right
Telephone calls that will never be returned

To-do lists that will never be fulfilled -
No one wants to clear his life away

I gaze into the eternity beyond pupils dilation
Where soul has lost sole control of the spirit
And the darkness that grips twists the mind
Warping memories into incoherent phantoms
Wailing in anguish as I brush them aside

Gazing deeper,
Beyond the pale of of my mortal coil
Searching for an answer that nature neglects
Written not in emerald green starbursts,
Shrouded by grey washed blue skys,
But further, beyond the heavens
Where night stretches beyond Terra Firma
And empty space reigns in perpetual waltz
Aging as my eye progresses towards the birth
When light was given life and purity was pure
Before the infection of the question
That has no answer

Nor did it need,
For there I found looking back as if a mirror
My reflection staring at itself in amazement
For I had solved the theory of everything
By knowing thyself… beyond myself

As a song without words-
Shall I sing, forevermore?
These shapeless chords
That give way to convey
Statement, free from form.
Much the same as one who
Must scream, yet is unable?

I have no fear of anyone who opposes me,
Shall I live? Forever, I am
****** to die, regardless
Of the life I lead. So,
To nihilism and cynicism; should I cling?
Or fight for my ideals and beliefs?
What is it, to fight? To be violent, to the pacifist;
To resist violence, with pacifism.

I fear no man that would oppress me,
Shall you live? Never, would I
Bend the knee before being
Brought to kneel. Rightly,
You can **** me
But what I die for lives on;
Drown in the wake
Of those that love,
Those that bleed

What peace allows;
Time to think, of
What freedom means

~
We don't need
Other worlds
We need mirrors

We need thin waists
And a hysteresis curve
To the hips

Let us drink in the sea
And laugh as our number
Comes up

Let us commit
To be noncommittal
And talk nary a word

On age and death
Over afternoon tea
In the bright withered garden

Where the goodness of man
Longed to be more
Than its darkling reflection
~

EARTH SONG
In that brief interval
Between first and final dust
Comes the song.

Lying supine in my crib,
With limbs flailing,
My curious eyes meet
Those of strangers
hovering above my cradle.

They sing softly to me
And I am mysteriously calmed.

In time I too will learn to sing
The names of everything -
Of what to do and why
And learn to check the ragings
Of my feral heart.

Someday I will sing the day long -
Serenading the fruits of the soil -
Belting out tunes of celebration
Or chanting lamentations of loss and sorrow.

But now, lying in my cradle
With arms and legs flailing,
I listen with curiosity
To the mysterious music that comes
In that brief interval
Between first and final dust.

April, 2008