I am a point of observation.
I am your sword,
I am your shield.
I am your every word,
I am your crippled will.
I am your triumph,
I am your loss, your victory;
I am the passing centuries.
I am your mirror,
I am your history,
I am your nonchalance in the face of misery.
I am your passing glance at what you shouldn't see.
I am your only chance.
I am whatever you mean.
I am kind and I am keen.
I am the always unseen:
I am your myth,
I am your lore,
I am your every memory
A billion times before.
I am ageless,
And I am never born.
I am the first lie.
I am every star in every sky,
And I am right there with you when you die.

-Forrest Jorgensen

Every year I watch as the withered trees
Sprout new leaves in Spring,
And see those too turn to crimson and amber
To fall to the earth and begin again.
It reminds me of my own being,
How within me a clock is ticking,
Reminding me that each passing season
Is one less to live.
But, though I may decay into nothing someday,
I'd give it all to clean this mess we've made,
To push us toward a better way:
To give and not to take,
To love and to create.

By: Forrest Jorgensen ©

My uncle died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
It made his brain dissolve itself in nine months.
I stood next to the once-stalwart man,
With mechanic's hands,
Lying in his hospice bed
That smelled like disinfected death.
During his short stay there I heard him say
"What's happened?"
In his faltered, degenerated state.
"What's happened?"
He repeated, as he saw his withered arms,
While wearing a diaper,
Gazing around with half-empty eyes,
Grasping for some shred of light
In his shattered ruin of a mind.
The life he once made for himself is gone,
And somewhere within himself he knew it.
Somewhere that held on until his final breath,
As he shrieked with pure fear
In his final sleep.

Overlooking the back parking lot of this hospice
A playground stands, built by hand.
The children probably look over here
And wonder what this place is,
What happens here.
I'd tell them that
These are things you don't need to know.
Now go stay outside and play
While the sun is still up.

Forrest Jorgensen ©

The dreams of our children are dead before they're born.
We toil away so that made men can get paid far more than we want to say.
Our lives in this place are stilted and gray.

So tell me, why is it
That every art I see
Is tainted with inhumanity?
Why do the eyes of almost everyone I meet
Whimper with resigned defeat?
How have we made a world
That thrives off our own suffering?
And how does such injustice remain supreme?

The way out is within.
It is you, it is me,
It is all of humanity,
Together,
Seizing control of our beings,
And forging a world where we are truly free.

By: Forrest Jorgensen ©

Life culminates and dissipates;
I remember to remember,
Then run out of space.
Your distant face in retrospect,
Crystallized by neurology,
Leaves me longing for an apology
Some respite for what you did.
The clouds come rolling in,
And you stay gone.
The wild runs within my skin,
And you're still gone.
I've learned a lot since then,
I've learned how to be me,
Taught by the moon's apogee,
Experience distilling my being
Into something that I hope isn't like you.

Stay gone, Steve,
Stay away from me,
Rot alone in your empty home.
One day you'll hear about me,
And realize I did everything I've done
Regardless of you.

By: Forrest Jorgensen ©

I passed a drifter sitting on the edge
Of the I-49 on-ramp
As he gave me a fleeting glance
With his thumb up-stretched.
Then I passed a driverless car
On the highway's shoulder,
Dented and sun-bleached,
Whose owner is probably sitting in a cell.

Every commuter and traveller:
We all pass these stranded souls
And remnants on our way to wherever,
Without a second thought.
The shredded tires and shattered bumpers;
Skid marks as a testament.
They might as well not exist.

Just last night I read about some woman
Seen on a security camera in New York --
Eating a burger, of all things --
Witnessing a car plow into three people on a sidewalk
Across the street from her.
She turned around, walked off.
Two people died in that moment.

It makes me think about those charity commercials
Of starving children that no one likes to watch,
And how the marketing team thought
Those desperate scenes might inspire
Someone to help.
But, even when tragedy is right next to someone,
They seem to go about their business:
Business as usual.

We have left ourselves alone,
And alone we decay.

By: Forrest Jorgensen ©

Guide me along the notes melancholy,
String me within their somber frets,
Assure that I entangle in the web
Of words written over several
Slow, sad evenings,
With rain's faint hum against the house,
And blanketing, billowing quilts of
Gray, endless clouds stretching to
Every horizon.
Show me into your heart,
Into the pain and disappointment
That made you start writing this song.

I know how to unmute the colors
On your friend's faces.
I know how to wake up with vigor,
How to complete tasks as they arise.
Indeed, many know how to cope
With losing someone:
You don't.
The years scab over our hearts,
They wrinkle our hands
And cloud our thoughts.
Alone we turn to stone,
As the years come and go, one by one.

By: Forrest Jorgensen ©