Birth is  a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey:
from childhood to maturity
and youth to age;
from innocence to awareness
and ignorance to knowing;
from foolishness to discretion and then, perhaps to wisdom;
from weakness to strength
or strength to weakness -
and often back again.
From health to sickness and back we pray to health again;
from loneliness to love,
from joy to gratitude, from pain to compassion,
and grief to understanding -
from fear to faith until,
looking backward or ahead,
we see that victory lies
not at some high place along the way,
but in having made the journey, a sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning and death a destination.
But life is a journey,
from birth to death......to life everlasting.!

Sammy

Oh ye student of Gothic complication
How dost thou writhe in a sea of nightly scented jasmine?
How dost thou cast off the shackles of thy piteous life lost?
To effortlessly shed the ruckfall of protagonists
...in a double narrative of well travelled refinement?

Linguistically intriguing it be. the richness therein enthralls.
A depiction of contemporary expression from a student of sleight of hand, wed in a rapture to the knowledge that whatever thou has written, shall flow through the fingers like a waterfall of soft white sand.
M.

Shadowed in the deepest trench
Four good men stand and stare
At my white face now reflected,
As if I wasn’t there.
Through a barrier of ethnicity,
Down walls of wooden eyes,
To pass through halls of prejudice
That none of us disguise.
They see me through a spectre,
Depicted by a ruse,
Of elemental difference
Which neither party choose.
A product of upbringing
Incumbent in each race,
Between us lies discomfort
When we search each other’s face.

They are black and I am white
Our blood shares crimson red
We all love our wives and family
And we struggle till we’re dead.
Why we amplify this difference
Why we bear this manic cost….
Where a hue of pigmentation
Means all reasoned thought is lost?

There’s a sadness in the offing
There’s an air of quiet remorse,
For mankind to come to terms with this….
The beast must run its’ course.

Marshalg
In the deep northern trench
27 July 2015

Discussing selves
Seperating, the who, the me and the I's
Devin, Fiendish and Abyss
Names, giving voice to the enigma
The grandeur of my existence

Each so distinct from the other
Their echoes scream insanities
To outside observer
Unknown to them, the saviors
The martyrs, dematerializing
Preserving the vessel for new life.

As I am now, as I perceive
The life that was Devin
Is only a shade, a memory.
His ghost fades in time
Burdening wounds of flesh
Reminisce of his struggle.
Consumed by the flames of darkness

Born from the ashes Abyss.
Singing songs of the soul
Revitalize broken body.
Shattered experiences now
Sewn with vendetta.
Passion, dagger tongued monster.
The frail boy, seized by demons.
To heal mortal pains.

Enter and accept the madness
Fiendish rises, the final mantle.
Successor of consciousness
Stranger to the former, fading.
I am the survivor.

And into the wee hours of the
morning,
struggling to slip into slumber
before the onset of dawn,
I wonder if you meant it
when you said you still
think of me
all the time.
Are you thinking of me now?
Is your body frozen,
back flat against your mattress,
eyes glued to the ceiling;
are you laying motionless
with a brain wide awake?
Oh, how I imagine
our bodies trapped in parallel framing,
equally restless with
parallel thoughts
interwoven in the space between us.

Something I would tell you son
that's only known to me
a burden it is knowing alone
it's time I share with thee.

Shocking was what he revealed to me
tragic too was the tale
of a woman's loss of dignity
her passing thru fire of hell.

Her I have held in high esteem
her sanctity locked in trust
never knew she was a sad victim
of a man's monstrous lust.

My father felt it would only be fair
it needed him just to be brave
with son the secret he must share
not carry alone to the grave.

I hold it now that grave secret
father left his job was done
burdened with a heavy weight
that I can't share with son.

The woman she is still alive
knocking on ninety's door
her skin a shade of dried beehive
she remembers not anymore.