If we find something we are willing to die for, we truly live.

*Not a poem, nevertheless the birth of many.

The ember extinguishes,
Imposing darkness.
The pyre's carcinogen
ushers him to move on.

The fragrance teleports him:
Childhood bonfires,
Burning cities,
The end of civilization.

Burn it all down!
So much is lost.
From the fires of rebellion,
regression into tribes.

Among the ashes,
he finds a charred Bible
and quickly hides it.
Demoniacal wailing nearby.

He hurries to his bivouac,
hidden in a cliffside crevasse.
He devours the legible words,
diligently memorizing fragments.

A far off explosion reverberates;
pinned up book pages quake.
He mumbles “***** and Gomorrah
… to ashes … the ungodly.”

Feebly he undresses:
jacket with phoenix insignia,
tattered baseball cap,
and military boots.

His eyes, deeply sunken,
craving to espy hope.
His quivering emaciated frame
lowers unto a cot.

Laying his hoary head to pillow,
Phrases, memories, and regrets
accompany him to the celestial gates;
the ember extinguishes.

Slumbering in my capacious tomb,
I dread the surrounding recesses.
I've carefully examined every room,
silence building into deafening excess.

A horrid intuition commands me now,
Something watches at the threshold.
Hours have passed without a sound,
But I'm no fool, silence, I withhold.

Feigning sleep, I bow my head,
allowing the stranger to approach my bed.
No longer a bugaboo, it draws its knife
springing forth like a cobra to take my life.

Snarling like a beast, I counter its jab
Horror marks its face as I ferociously grab,
Wrapping its head with my blanket,
I twist, and lay the beast to casket.

Every night I battle my beast
And never have I ceased
To terrify that familiar freak,
Haunting my subliminal sleep.

Winter's livery,
Twisted tree twigs ghostly garbed,
*****, lusting Spring.

I have a tremendous fear
my memories will disappear.
Transient is our memory
In the sight of eternity.

A gentle breeze wafts away
my meaningful thoughts by day,
falling fast into the night.
Mind’s eye has lost its sight.

My sandcastles washed into the sea,
time again to return to industry.

Oh to be swept away in a melody
Caught in the maelstrom of a rhapsody.
The throbbing tide tugs our hearts
Like David charming Saul with his harp.

In intimate dance, soul and song entwine
Two notes forming a chord sublime.
The lyrics, an incantation, of unearthly hold,
Giving us the vigor to face the untold.

And one day our cadence will surely cease.
Our completed symphonies may bring peace.
Will our compositions instill life or death?
Will we exhale life before the last breath?

A carnivorous beast lies pitted deep inside.
It devours its prey, gorging till it subsides.
Living in the heart of man, this beast doth reside.
It stalks upon carnal thoughts yet to betide.

A reincarnate knight seeks a kingdom of glory.
To vanquish the beast: his reoccurring story.
Oft' has the beast left the field torn and gory.
Yet, the knight strives for resplendent victory.

Fanfare pierces the soul; the champion sheathes his sword.
Returning to his dais, the knight returns as lord.

Sow my heart into your soil,
surging, sultry crimson oil
melts away your rocky toils,
seething passion starts to boil.

Magma devours fertile ground,
hissing, screeching, horrid sounds.
Land claimed without bound.
The ****** island drowns.

There once was a hoary miser,
Who believed himself the wiser.
He hoarded his money
And divorced his honey,
Sly Liza, buries rich fertilizer.

Dizzy, dazed, and sedated,
Nightly rinse bleaching brains,
Slowly spinning me apart.
Roses flashing on screen, withered.

Worshiping at the Pantheon,
Novocaine for the brain.
My habitual easy friends.
Lust conquering love.

Lights go out!
Alone in the dark.
Guiltless shame,
I'll quit after tomorrow.

She cries for help
Grasping, clutching
Drowning in anxiety,
Dragging others down.

She demands friendship.
She commands respect.
Scream,
Cry,
Plead,
Repeat.

Sedate me now.
Sinking into numbness.
Canker,
Ulcer,
Tumor,
Death.

A captured thought thrashes inside my chest,
As the droning teacher drills out his behest.
His lecture lulls us with impervious haze,
As the wandering pupils observe in a daze.

My captive prisoner rages to reach outside,
But I fail to arise, I'm shut up, tongue-tied.
The captain now slowly sails the ship away
Completely unaware of the treasure left astray.

I long for solitude;
The day's barking tyrants
Drained my reservoir.

Thirsty for life,
I search for my oasis
On life's arid expanses.

I witness the crucifixion;
I watch firefighters burn books;
I can't resist the sirens' call.

The ionizing words mutate me;
I read, and I'm pierced.
The tyrant's visage, shattered.

Alight from your throne,
reeking of superiority.
Cast the first stone!
It no longer bothers me.

Spewing impotent venom,
your willfully caged mind,
conditioned, doped, benumbed,
cradled ideology; you're blind.

Let us meet as equals.
A dialogue must be fanned,
or the cycle of upheaval
will regress the promised land.

A sultry wind surges o'er the Mediterranean.
Rosy fingered dawn wakes the world,
As I habitually walk the lonely path to labor.

A melancholy song sounds from the barley field.
Hypnotized, I follow through undulating grain,
Which lithely tosses back and forth in dance.

‘Neath a willow, amongst the barley, sits a girl,
Garbed in a white tunic, playing her angelic harp.
Her hazel hair weightlessly sways in the wind.

Her olive toned fingers pluck with mastery.
Nobility marks her solemn dark brows,
That sit atop commanding, umber eyes.

The harp's supple bends are a tribute
To the lady's long limber figure,
As she directs wind and waves by ballad.

She looks up from her earthen dais,
Eyes aglow with a playful, sultry look.
Pierced by her gaze, I awake...

With her, my wife, beside me.

A monolithic sculpture stands upon a hill.
Ornate work of marble marks the artisan’s skill.
Clad as a knight of yore, with stony gaze held high.
Pilgrims travel from miles around to fall under his eye.

Epitome of courage, virtue, and respect
effused upon the villagers traits they should reflect.
Elements gnawed at the stone but failed to corrode
the manifold of lofty aims the knight would bestow.

Dark years beset the kingdom causing disarray-
Tyranny, vanity, and deceit led the people all astray.
Artisan's work above, a shining icon of probity.
A resolute bastion against the world’s impulsivity.

A day will come when the people reach distress;
crying out, they beseech the artisan’s redress,
but long has the craftsman been journeying far away
humbly allowing his handiwork, the message he conveys.

Plagued by crippling doubt,
You trudge through life,
Hesitant, confused, aimless.
Peril lurks behind you.

You cling to what you know:
A sweet, numb idleness.
You seek a badge of courage,
But are waylaid by hedonism.

Sinking deeper into sorrow,
The many colored beast nearby,
Whispering, “you are alone,
Worthless, inadequate, a corpse."

Night’s jaws envelope you,
As the taint burns your soul.
The beast prowls unchallenged,
Leaving the heart torn and gory.

About to concede to the Destroyer,
You are interrupted in the act,
By a still small voice,
And love embraces you.

Charged neurons firing,
Bombshell ideas explode,
Rifting old beliefs.

Downward a brink strewn with craggy rubble,
I, confounded by impervious haze,
Despair the convoluted path and stumble.
Slick, sable stones reduce me to my knees.
The glorious Pilgrimage beckons me:
“Rise and seek out yonder city of gold,
descend ye from thy safe promontory
And subject thyself to dangers untold.”
On bended knee, head bowed, I pray and plead
For provision and eased yoke -and trudged on.
Abandon all hope, and many concede,
At the wicket gate, where I near anon.
    Tenant of celestial city now.
    With robust garden, I reflect my plow

Just the other day
I noticed little things
Were going missing:
Thimble,
Spectacles,
Needle,
Fifty cent piece.

I found it particularly queer
How these objects disappeared.
I don't think I misplaced them
Perhaps my mind erased them.

[Later that week]

Today is my birthday.
Tilly, my granddaughter,
Presents me with a
Needlepoint magpie.

My heart finds incandescent joy.

A gallery full of flawless art.
The colorful walls are lined with portraits.
My canvas face observes patiently.

The drones buzz around the room.
Stinging, they leave no honey.
Jagged lines, a black and white visage.

Swarms amass on the colored sheets,
Desperate for a hit of gratifying nectar.
My crude gaze has none to offer.

The incessant humming is deafening.
As I hang there, suspended, in neglect.
The sun sets; wasps return to their hives.

The artist who drafted me chose stark lines,
And hung me unfinished in that dark corner,
Reminding us of apathy for works in progress.

Tolerance seems kind;
guised, it's apathy malign,
silently we pine.

Sinuous the smoke
Tainting serene summer sights
Flaming, scourging plight.