Showing posts with label memento mori. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memento mori. Show all posts

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Villanelle for Lost Dreams


Beneath the whirling tumult of sea
is the resting place of forgotten dreams.
But not everything below is dead,
they just cannot be touched by the sun
and what was once so vivid and true
is now a heartbeat beneath the sand.

Through the hourglass slips the sand
creating a beach for the pale green sea
making what is real no longer true
and in our waking hours, those dreams
of days when we could touch the sun
fall like gulls upon the shore, dead.

Where do we go when the past is dead?
Do we bury our heads under the sand
or turn our eyes up towards the sun?
Only in that white, bright light do we see
the weak heartbeat of lost dreams
and a north star to what is true.

Following the path that’s straight and true,
the waysides littered with our dead,
we behold the cost of our fever dreams
in shallow graves beneath hot sand.
All the cleansing of salted sea
cannot reverse the setting sun.

We plod along, daughter and son,
in search of dreams and love that’s true.
Each changing like tides on the sea
That only stop if we are dead.
Still we write our names in sand
And skip flat stones like they’re our dreams.

What is the meaning of these dreams,
That will one day implode like our sun,
If not an attempt to stay Time’s own sands
Or a question of what’s still true
That we sing to all our dead
Floating on burning ships to sea.

What we know to be true, is lost at sea
where dreams are as movable as sand.
We are not dead, yet we block the sun.

Monday, March 05, 2012

I always imagined I would know


I always imagined I would know
the exact moment when your heart stopped beating
whether it was a sudden illness
or some freak accident,
like getting hit by a cab while crossing 3rd Ave.
(You know nobody minds that stoplight)
In that instant, I would look up from my work

and put my hand on my chest.
I would know
because how could I not.
But the truth is

there will be no ethereal moment
where your soul passes through me

on its way to the next world.
I will not notice one less breath in the atmosphere

and the sky won’t seem darker than before.
Even mothers do not realize

when their sons have drowned in rivers
many miles away.
My hands won’t cease to work without you

and the sun will shine regardless.
A world without you tomorrow
is exactly the same as today,
But when I get that phone call
Or find you face down on the kitchen floor,
everything, oh yes, everything

Will never be the same
and I will imagine I always knew.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

the rest is silence

with wings outstretched
the setting sun can turn a raven blue
feathers tangled in branches that cradle
after that fateful plunge from the sky

black claws let go
throw your head back and laugh
at the fly that eats your eyes
at the maggots in your belly
at the inevitable decay

birds are meant to stay in the sky
but we all are worms in the end.





Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Memento Mori

In the gully along the trail
Deer bones lay scattered, forgotten toys.
Picked clean of meat and worm devoured,
Set a snowy white in the sweltering June.

Deep inside the sun bleached skull,
The empty arroyo of the eyes
Examines the same small bit of ground
But all it sees is endless dirt.

Foliage hugs the skeleton close
Gripping the shards of deer remains
Grinds the bones into a fine dust
And to each their separate end:

The pulling of body back into earth
I, too, can feel it in my bones.