He thought he won the race
Until they moved the finish line
To a cold November Day
With a small crowd gathered
Crunching winter gravel under their feet
Whispering hushed pain to one another
On the cold and frosted green

When will it end?
Plague blown on panic wind
To fall on man and dirt the same
Dust and droplet in fogging haze
To end perhaps
Perhaps in shame
As fools fly to evade
Ever comes the big charade
The show, the tent
The acts unfold
Bought and paid
With tickets sold
By men of means
To foster all their evil deeds

Somewhere within the dark dreams

I think that I knew what death was

Day was night and turned to sky

And the night was lit like fire

Sleep was awake and awake was a dream

And I was over and under water

I was haunted by the faces of all those I loved

Voices echoing down the dimming hallway

Seen yet gone in fading sense

Shadowed vision in cold and sweat

Burned and burned beneath the covers

And then the ride

In red and white

The hearse not yet

But low and long, oversized, with tires singing

Humming their song while he called my name over and over

Sirens sang too, not steel and drum

But sweet sirens, enticing

Swaying down the blocks

Stoplights passing, windows flashing

Slatted light blinking beneath dark buildings

To end, the end

In sleep

Rested sleep

No fever burning

Rested sleep to awake from death

From dreams

For tomorrow

We bleed liberty

Her lifesblood

Spattered and pooled below

Grasping reason reaches

In vain

To understand

The meaning of the pain

With weakened limb

And fading brain

Quickly darkening sight

Closes in

And

She succumbs

Without a sound

And fades away

He lay beneath the cold

Dark roots reaching down

As dead as the day he died

He lay beneath the cold

His dreams untold

In the light and warm sunshine

As dead above as down below

He lay beneath the cold

He couldn’t tell with lips of stone

His dreams unknown

A hero gone in hate

Alone in the cold down below

His heart now as still

As his hope

Thwarted ocean now behind her

Salted wind and low voiced murmur

Creaking beam and riven plank

Breaking waves in dark of night

Under load and straining rope

Slowly slips into the harbor

Stealth and darkness help to hide her

While anchor drops and warriors ready

‘Til deafening roar on ‘Morrow dawn

Bring death and war to our shores

No one here is set save you

Save yourself or perish surely

Now is the time to put fear aside

……. And fight

They lived as ghosts
Between the light and the dark
Leading their lives as dead men
Gone without the funeral
Buried beneath headstones without dates
No green fields to tread upon
And see their names
No flowered coffin to cry upon
They were the chosen
The few
To fight
Chasing the wraiths of freedom
A ghost as elusive as themselves