I'm a collection of solitudes
A silence derived from the summation of all languages

I'm 69 years old and every day for years has been special to me
I see the news every day, more death and destruction
Young men and women of every nation and yes children too
Denied the right to grow old
Victims of the bullet, bomb, rocket, famine
On my head a scar
Between the tip of my left ear and the few brains I have left
Yes, an eighth of an inch more, no head left
Courtesy of an AK 47
Another occasion 9 days in hospital, 5 of them completely blind
Courtesy of an improvised bomb
And yet I'm still here to tell about it
While so many are not
Should I be feeling guilt?
I don't know
But I still ask myself the question after all these years
Why so many have died
And yet I survived

We've become a
civilization of diseases
we build
monuments
statues
institutions
thinking death won't ever find
us here.

Our minds are scrambled
our bodies are damaged
our food is poisoned
our skies are toxic
our vices
are forces of processes
beyond our
control.

When we are not humbled
by nature's power
we inflict our wounds
upon ourselves in
the names of greed
and self protection
and no one knows
what it really means.

Fearful of the silence
we fill our skies with
endless noise
babbling on in endless
monotones, droning
while traffic stalls
at a hot stand still
idling engines
idling souls
depletion of every last glimpse
of the past.
Jam packed
in the stench
I am lost today
in
this vitriol
as anxiety, death and desperation
from every corner
screams my name.

That's why I came
to these woods
where the illusion of
peace remains
as
wild fires burn
just down the lane
as you know
as you say
its always been this way
when bodies hung
at every cross-roads
hunger, power, ignorance
and strength
all ran
the show.

I'm sick with
every disease I
know.

I float upon these tranquil
blue waters
and
we are reminded of the peace we all
really can know.

I stumbled into a world
where good vs. evil was routine;
where cards were alive, cats talked,
and a strange man asked me to tea.

I was young and forgetful,
the memory faded away
then one day I fell again
chasing a rabbit with a familiar face.

I was confused
my destiny once again unclear
a peculiar catterpillar
told me what was to appear.

If I shall fall again,
and be given another test
I hope the question is
"how is a raven like a writing desk?"