"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen."

Young, we understand
the world, but not ourselves.
Old, we understand
ourselves, but not the world.
Between falls the mysterious
and baffling substance
of our lives. Confusion
marks any real life
of consciousness.
Certainty is the lie
we believe in to smooth
the transition. Death
is the period that punctuates
the end of our sentence,
when we finally know
what we really know
in silence.

Life lasts but an hour
that cold winds devour;
all that we love and know
smashed by the winds that blow,
leaving nothing but the cold
to chill the still living old.
  Ashes, all that soon remain…

I was a teacher once.

My students seemed
like glittering
fantastical birds.

The girls flew and flashed
in their keen new beauty,

the boys perched sullenly
and stiff as boys seem
always wont to do.

I was a teacher observing
the flittering
ephemera of youth,

that one thing
we all remember
always

though it only
stays a little

before it is driven
by worry and the world
into memory

and flies away
into forever.

Kiss me Goddess.
I want your tongue
in my human mouth
filling it with words.
I want your breath
in my lonely lungs
inspiring me.
Haptic Lady,
I want your legs
around my waist
urging me to creation,
undulating ecstasy.
Make me dizzy
with your passion
and I will sing
your holy songs
to flawed creation.
Oh ****** Muse
of the holy body
and the broken,
profane heart,
come with me,
and laugh aloud
when you do.
We will name
our children poems
and send them
into the mortal world
where they will
walk in beauty
and make us proud.

Everything on this gelid morning speaks only dead languages.
Change your mind. Consider it a beguilingly blank canvas.
Slather it with the random pigments of your imagination.
Go for a stroll and practice random acts of sadistic charity.
Inhale the exquisite frondescence of naked branches.
Focus your neurons on everything you have forgotten.
******* incessantly to Mozart's Requiem. Honor his memory.
Unleash your nukes. Annihilate Canada. Destroy winter for good.
Make your lover a garland of cassowary feathers. Impress her.
Concentrate on growing horrifically profuse ***** hair.
Study the nonexistent texts of forgotten Uzbecki ascetics.
Raise fearsome armies of rabid Chinese lawn gnomes. Attack.
Try to knit String Theory while contemplating theoretical macramé.
Drink cider vinegar to defuse the carcinogenic dangers of politics.
Attempt to complete a peace treaty with gravity. Concede nothing.
Build a launch pad. Hurl rusting Ramblers into low earth orbit.
Collect ingredients. Home brew ******, absinthe and aphrodisiacs.
Test drive a luxury submarine in your neighbor's swimming pool.
Smash the endless contemporary Conga Line of Dumb. Think about it.
Surrender to uncommon sense for a change. Avoid the ordinary.
Give peace a chance. Endless war has left it lonely and depressed.
Admit that everyone is well and truly ******. Relax. Breathe.
Proclaim the advent of the poetry of the apocalypse,
but take care not to write any of it down yet. Go slowly.
Tomorrow is another day to be filled. Keep some options open.

Death is a ******
who never misses.
He stalks us all,
calmly awaiting
the proper moment,
takes perfect aim, fires,
and thinks we are gone.
Looking anxiously
over your shoulder
will not avail.
Death is patience incarnate.
He is a gatherer,
ceaselessly collecting,
eternally foraging,
and when he finds us
he slips us into his bag
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a messenger
delivering the telegram
that says our time is up.
He reads it to us
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a conductor
who calls a stop,
sees us off the train
and thinks we are gone.

But death is mistaken.

Death is certain,
but it is not final.
The world we touched
is changed forever
by our journey in it,
however brief or long.
Something of us remains
in a child, a garden,
a painting, a poem,
a kiss, a caress,
a gasping ******.
Our hearts stop beating,
but breath does not depart.
It floats in clouds
of atoms that we were.
Those we leave behind
have only to inhale
and once again
we are with them,
and within them.
Bodies die; love never does.
Each life, sacred and eternal,
inspires Creation.
We are never truly gone.

And so, an ending, just one,
before another beginning.
How much do you need to know
in any lifetime, long or short?
Do not fear death. Breathe deeply.
Embrace multitudes. Love whom you can.
Speak truth to power. Try to be
the best person you can be,
however imperfectly. Be willing
to fail with great joy;
to succeed with gratitude.
There is no best time to live.
There is only being alive.
Each moment leads only to
another present. Be in it. Be it.
And then, soon enough, be gone.