Life passes by
Moment by moment
Each minute a grain of sand
In a ceaseless flow inside
This biological hourglass

Time has this peculiarity:
This irreversible absurdity

That to crave for more time
Becomes one's slow undoing
Sagging skin, unsightly wrinkles
Bones turn brittle, breaking
Muscles ****** out of their strength
Atrophied
Eyes failing, perpetual darkness
And the self succumbs to the lull
Of oblivion
The mind: no longer, extinguished
What's left is a husk of what once was
A human being.

Hope then becomes a beacon, a torch
In the middle of a starless night
A burning, warm sense of certainty
Hope, or that stubborn illusion
That happiness is one's lot in life

But time silently persists
Eroding foundations, narratives
Dismantling falsity
Uprooting grand, elaborate conceits
Blind and merciless
Uncaring towards puny human desires
Hope's demise.

Life: a futile struggle against time.

To what end?

I can practically see the sand
Slipping easily through the gap
Between the top of the hourglass
And the bottom.
Our once-forever friendship
Flashes before my eyes,
Its highs, its lows, my everything...
I had heard that good things don't last forever,
But I guess I truly believed that love conquered all.

Time trickles from my upturned palms
In streams of oil and water
I’ve been trying so intently
To stop it
I haven’t had a moment to spend on anything else

I know that when we meet  
A lifetime will pass in a second
But somehow I’ll revel in the light and the darkness
Like the flickering of rapidly turned pages

“Our love was an hour glass.
Each grain was a memory lived so perfectly and full of love.
Time was seeping through my hands and I didn’t realize it.
As the last grain fell and settled down below, our love stopped.
Everything started falling apart.
In the chaos of the moment It finally dawned on me.
We were dancing in a fairy tale that was fabricated.
But even so I wanted to keep waltzing on the sand with my bare feet and her in my arms.
Sadly I couldn’t dance anymore.
My feet bled and I crumbled as my soul wore out.
I had to face the truth.
Your love was poisonous, toxic some would say.
It Destroyed me from the inside, Making me weak and fragile.
And Love, my dear you ****.“

Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she sees are the nights of despair stars endure.
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems sure.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end . . .
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as she sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, night and day rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.

Keywords/Tags: life, death, flesh, mortality, time, sand, hourglass, ash, loss, night, moonlight, stars, rain, grass, despair

Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she sees are the nights of despair stars endure.
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems sure.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end . . .
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as she sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, night and day rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintery light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.

Keywords/Tags: life, death, flesh, mortality, time, sand, hourglass, ash, loss, night, moonlight, stars, rain, grass, despair