There's a monument outside of town
I go there when the sun goes down
And I listen....

The names upon that granite slab
Are worn and rusted, slightly drab
Still  I listen

There's a silence hanging in the air
Hiding the thoughts of those not there
And I listen

I sit upon the steps below
In rain, or sun, and even snow
And I listen

Thirty men remembered here
Though none of them are buried near
So I listen

I've met others beneath this pigeon roost
Whose spirits I have tried to boost
As I listen

I wait to hear them from the grave
The voices of the dead, the brave
And I listen

None has spoken out to me
I know they watch and they see
As I listen

I keep watch throughout the night
I head home when it is daylight
And I listen

During the day there's too much noise
To hear the voices of these boys
But, I listen

So each night as the sun goes down
I venture once more out of town
And I listen

I listen.....

We are the missing, the dead, the lost
Never found, and in the world
No monument exists for us
No flag has been unfurled

We lie in riverbeds and wood
Beneath stream beds and in fields
Were tears of woe ever wept for us?
Did a heart break, did it yield?

We wandered off in cases, some
In others, lured, abductions
Our bodies never found, but though
We caused a family some reduction

In others, we were found too late
Dead, mistreated in a hole
The one who did this thing to us
Until caught, ******* their soul

We lie here waiting for the day
For our remains to be found
We lie in woodlots, basements cold
Buried crudely in the ground

Some of us were lost before
We ever lost our lives
Roaming streets, with no real home
Dancing on a hundred knives

Some of us are living
Still at odds with where we are
We're prisoners inside our mind
And have gone and wandered far

But, those of us, the dead, the cold
Lie waiting for the day
When our bones will be discovered
And then at rest we'll lay

Are there people out there looking?
Many years for us have passed
Are we still an open case?
Or has the time for that just passed?

Do we still have family waiting?
Time goes slowly when you're lost
We lost our lives to violence
And I question at what cost?

Are we still considered missing?
With us the searching will not cease
We lie here, the dead, the missing
Until our souls can be at peace

You tenderly carve, day and night
my heart with your chisel, sharp, incisive
as if it's a block of alabaster, at your disposal
chosen to create your one true masterpiece.
I believe in you,and submit, why? I can't really tell
Isn't it true love, that transcends limits of thought?

I let you do it as I can see  it pleases you the most,
after the moment your eyes had fallen on mine first
and stood still; I saw a divine  excitement on your face.

Is it pleasure or pain?I can't answer that question
I love you, and want you to do what pleases you the most.
My muse said, "Don't let her do this, she doesn't know
it's true worth, she'll ruin it in her, enthusiasm without limits"
I said in a whisper "I've hopelessly fallen in love, for ever"

I'd be your monument of whatever, success or failure,
I feel  the forces of nature that decide what it turns out, at last
and I listen to the sound of hammer on the chisel and patiently wait.

I am built like city blocks
crooked and running in all directions.
My veins run up and down like busy streets,
lit by headlights and street lamps.
My scars are like demolished buildings,
a reminder of something that once was.  
I have a skyscraper mind that
reaches higher than anything else.
My heart is a monument that many see
but don't really know.
My thoughts are subways and buses that
move everywhere all at once.
There is no stopping- only a hushed hurry.
I am hard and concrete, my sidewalks are stained;
but to some, I am home.
I have hidden secrets inside, that you only know once
you decide to stay in the city
and choose to love me.

on the steps of the notre dame
i lost my sense of color
every moonbeam through the
cracked walls of the House of God
danced around me like blue gypsies
performing a ritual upon
every ringlet of hair on my head

in the catacombs of paris
i lost my sense of touch
every skull feeling like silk
dead calcium caressing
the flesh beneath which
my bones were moving
alive and restless

beneath the arc de triomphe
i lost myself
the curve of stone caving in on me
like a Parisian Goliath
and I, a madman David
names of fallen soldiers
engraved upon the walls
breathed back to life
from dust they have returned
they reach into my cerebrum
their stone fingers pulsing
with the hymnals of war
to meet with the battle
of indigos and crimsons coursing
through every nerve of my anatomy

behind the eiffel tower
i lost my art
paris lights beating down
a beast sleeping through the
tides of eulogies and odes
its orphans have to offer

If they made Holy Scriptures out of our deeds
How many would we put on display for everyone to read?
When Bani Israel was frozen in time
within divine words,
they did not know
they would become timeless lessons
for generations to come.
Not the liar when he told his last lie,
nor the careless while laughing at the cow,
not even the pious while he raised his staff.
Yet today, we read their stories
With heedless hearts ,
forgetting that we too will be written
in pages heavier than stones
on scales worth more than mountains of gold.
So, why do we pretend that our time is infinite?
As though tic tocs were nothing but melodious beats
synchronized to our pulse.

wal Asr
And by time
Innal Insana la fikhusr
Verily mankind is at loss

How can we not think of yesterday as an effigy,
And tomorrow’s uncertainty as a form of art?
We are artists.
And when our hair strands start to reflect the silver moonlight
When our eyes start telling century old stories
When our joints start pleading with time
Will we then finally ask ourselves:
What will there be left of us?
Originals,
or mere copies?

They carved a monument out of stone
Made it stand so proud,
Down by the coast,
Fishermen drowned.

They erected a monolith,
In the heart of town.
For local fallen lads,
In bitter conflicts.

They laid a stone flat,
At pit entrance where,
Miners had gone one morn.
Never to return.

A brother worked that boat.
An uncle fell in that war.
A father left down the pit.
A family’s history drawn
By sorrow and tragedy.

© Nick Strong 2014

The builders of Stonehenge
Were pelvicly challenged
So they erected a monument
In such a way
That it could be interpreted
As a displacement activity.

And the rest as they say
Is pre-history.