To Live by Death

To see your life

Through blinded eyes
Afraid to suffer
From surprise.

Afraid to live,

Afraid to trust,
To run from love
And into lust.

With your own creed

To disbelieve
In all that lives
And all that breathes

To count your blessings

With one breath
And pray to God
Yet live by death.

 

Love Is

A woman in black

And a child of the sun,
A beginning forgotten
And an ending begun.
A life in the stars
And a love of your own -
But what I wanted to say
Is existing unknown.

A future in hell

And a past in heaven,
A safe place to hide
Until all is forgiven.
An image of night
Yet a vision of death –
But I said the wrong words
With my final breath.

But at the end of the day

You’re alone in the room
And you blew out the sun
Just to turn on the moon.
With your face turning skywards
You long for a kiss –
And refuse to believe that
I am, you are, love is.

Hypocrisy

A man lies bleeding, his face is in ruins. No one stops to help him. Car headlamps momentarily release him from darkness, then plunge him back into it, ignoring his need. Flashes of light representing the passing feeling for him.

A man lies dying, his shattered car smoking. It’s getting late yet no one calls for help. No one gives him their time, no one wants to console him back to consciousness. No one slows down as they pass, but merely glance at the scene and hasten on into the sanctuary of their lives.

A man lies helpless, his blinded eyes unable to see humanity’s bitterness, his wounded arm unable to grasp for a hand that isn’t there, his bleeding throat unable to whisper to deaf ears that stopped listening long before he had started talking. And he is treated as a stranger and alien.

A man lies dead, too late to be saved by passing cars. And still people go by; never looking, never stopping, never caring, and drive off into the distance. So do I.

 

Grown up Children

There comes a time when logic dies

Though wearily life rolls on.
You see dawn fade in youthful eyes
As an eternal present grows long.

And yet there is neither a future nor past,

It will always and only be now.
You live through a day that may be your last
Forever reluctant to ask how or why.

You whisper alone with your final breath

Refusing to beg from the sky,
As silently you freeze to death,
Too shy to live, too proud to die.

A Solitude Called Peace

Amidst the sound

Of falling rain

Removing life
From earth again,
In gentle footsteps
On your mind
Are bitter words
That should sound kind.

The part of us

That life abhors
Will push us all
Through closing doors,
And yet protect us
From the sting
That always comes
When love begins.
 

But it’s too late

For feeling sad,
To dream of lives
We never had.
We’re too afraid
To see our wrong,
The crime in singing
A different song.

And yet there is

A subtle peace
That only comes
In deepest sleep;
From pain of love
This peace ensued
For love alone
Finds solitude.

Our Move

Like a dream that keeps recurring

Through the hours of the day,
And a heart that keeps on loving
When the mind has turned away.

We say the sun will rise and set

As it moves across the sky,
Perpetually able to forget
The astrological lie.

People search for lifelong fame

Yet fail to realise
That more impact can be made
From the way in which one dies.

As the richness of the dark

Forms the skeleton of a day,
We re-ignite the spark
Which burns itself away.

And as the truth of ancient lies

Is in itself a danger,
We find it hard to socialise
And act the deliberate stranger.

Like a game we’re always playing

To while away the hours,
In which the sun is always saying
That the move’s forever ours.

Kind words unsaid, good deed undone,

And yet the world evolved.
Look up one day and see the sun.
It stayed still while we revolved.