Whose arms will tenderly cradle me
When through Death's dubious portal I pass?
Whose heaven becomes eternal hell
When I'm laid to rest beneath the grass?

Whose quivering lips will call my name
As tears of remorse stream down his face?
Who will try to raise my lifeless arms,
Vainly imploring one last embrace?

Whose trembling hands will be joined in prayer
Seeking comfort from Heaven above,
While promising never to forget
His fervent vows of eternal love?

Who shall compose the final tribute ---
A sad farewell to the mortal me . . .
Perhaps a poem on a tear-stained page
That I'll carry through Eternity?

Who will mourn by my grave in Autumn
When the fading flowers give up their seeds?
Will I be draped in roses and ferns . . .
Or lie forgotten 'neath a pall of weeds!

Whose light will diminish the darkness
In my passage to Eternity?
If such love is never to be mine,
. . . then dead I would rather be!

for John Ensworth

Who am I and who on Earth are you?
     In case you wonder too, my friend,
I’ll trade your penny for my thoughts.

On any given day, I check the
    file drawers between my ears
and pluck out mental artifacts
    to craft into action plans
or in short, I THINK and DO.

And as far as reason leads me,
    I must DO to keep my world intact
and THINK to stave off Armageddon
    if you get my drift.
    
I know, I know, these separate hides
    we are destined to preserve
are breach-less firewalls
    that prevent our ever knowing
each other’s sacred mysteries.  
    Still we seek each other out.
Our common fate - our common bond.

The universe whirls crazily
     beyond the shackles of our skins.
so we measure all we can,
     chart the threads of consequence,
wonder at the mountains and
     seek to learn of seas and galaxies.
    
What do you think, my friend, of entropy?
     What is the nature of the God(s)
you choose to heed or disavow
     as you wander this inscrutable Earth?

Know that I love you, my stranger friend
     and lacking any other choice,
I cherish the firewalls that define us -
     that we cannot scale or circumvent.
      
January, 2020

Starting poetry again,
Was once a comfort and friend,
Now flames burn from ashes.
Paper transforms into an electric pulse,
From a hand extended outright and grasping for connection.

Together once more,
Was a friendship, loving, a journey through all that was life,
Not making narrative sense.
Now we rise as equal companions ready to slice letters with our thumbprints,
And tear at the nature of paper.

Today has risen,
A new era and decision,
What will fate give me?

Nothing about us without us,
Always about us, you're without us.
Including the moments in history, that deserve our religious screams, our outrage and defiance,
The human rights that slip your systemic mind from time to time, because it comes with a billboard that has a painted letter of a capital D.
We own the crippled and crumpled pages,
Your oppression is our spark of history,
Flattering the pages and creating a novel,
a permenant marker of our precence.
Will you pick it up and understand?
We made our place in the palm of your hand,
This is about us, and without us you wont stand.

I hear nothing but waves, and the air cascading around me with flecks of salt,
But i see infinite stretches of vulnerablity, it's as if i want to cradle this liquid into a glass and rock it to sleep as the waves and water do to me.
It is already the beginning of the ash mixing with the salt,
And the coral as white as the rarest of albino,
The layers of life are being heated to an extra degree,
The sun which gives us prosperity and hope beams in an angry, mocking setiment as if a child has been abused.
Which it has.
And the child protection workers are nowhere to be found.

As a family we have to admit our mistakes,
We have to strive to be better,
We need procedure, supports to at least be good enough,
We need to stop beating, abusing, and bruising.
Because our child will withdraw, our child will retaliate, and eventually fight back or destroy itself in the process.
And we will go along with it.