Best Mortality Poems
life is a feather on the wind ~ fallen from a sparrow who's not sinned
borne and adrift upon the air ~ brushed away like a stray strand of hair
fragile wanderer in doldrum streams ~ illuminated by moonbeams
floating on currents o'er the sea ~ never asks, "What's to become of me?"
a wisp, floundering where it doesn't belong ~ when it's done nothing wrong
A living thing, drawing breath ~ before it fell into the sea of death?
fragile are feathers and lives ~ torn asunder when an ill wind arrives
man's mortality smothers ~ but feathers... a sparrow can grow others
We are only here for a little while;
in the blink of an eye, we are gone.
Do what you can for your fellow man;
prepare for your permanent home.
Mortality is but a fragment of life.
02/23/2016
Contest: Fragment of life
Sponsor: Broken Wings
He is the silly brother of death
is never seen around the cradle
and has never turned up for the
first smoke
first beer
first love
He is waiting for you with jester cap and painted grin
halfway
Roaring with laughter he pushes aside
infinity
Together on the seesaw
he pushes you higher
and higher until you
dangle over boundless
gorges until you
scream you have to go because you
have
so many things to do
so little time to spend
With both feet back
on solid ground you buy him a
drink
and
wait
for his big brother to arrive
Everyone is a blended mixture of
Elementals made up of
Oxygen, carbon,
Hydrogen, nitrogen,
Calcium, phosphorus, and…
Trace elements
A divine recipe, perhaps?
Some are yet to be born
Some are young,
Some are old.
Some are people of color,
Some are people who lack color.
Some speak one language
Some speak many tongues.
Some are social
Some are antisocial.
Some are healthy
Some are sick.
But what am I?
Some are poor
Some are middle-class
Some are rich.
Some believe in God
Some sense a higher design
Some aren’t sure
Some are atheists.
Some are extroverts
Some are introverts.
Who am I?
Some live on farms
Some live in suburban communities
Some live in towns and cities.
Some live off the grid
Some are liberal
Some are moderate
Some are conservative.
How shall I live?
Some are loving
Some are joy-filled
Some are hate-filled.
Some want peace
Some want a cause
Some want war.
Some want to destroy
Some want to mend
Some want to kill
Some want to heal.
Should I matter?
Should I not?
What are my choices?
Everybody dies…
But do I truly live?
In this vast simplexity of humanity
Or am I more than the sum of the parts?
Or am I just a glitch of stardust
Or a spark of the divine?
Momentarily aware
Yet, unaware
Forever in BlueJeans…
Forever questioning?
“The Clock on the Wall”
That clock! The clock with cruelty, unmovable.
Telling time to be forever in motion.
The ticking, a deafening sound.
Marked by grime.
Yellowed by generations, grown digital.
By generations choosing to be illiterate.
The face, weathered from gazing faces…from faces.
Forever burdened by the echo.
TOCK!
Each minute, reversing youth.
Spinning hours that grin madly at the crows.
Birds destined to stomp divots into flesh.
Surrounding lids and lashes.
TICK-TOCK!
That hellish clock.
Stealing jewelry and lovers and future plans
Dreams given up in anguish to dead time, in the night.
The second hand, proud, purposeful.
Its movement pushing the aged into graves.
Eternally passing hours.
Laughing wildly at years gone by.
Heckling decades…lost.
TICK, TICK!
The ticking of that god-damned clock!
Mocking the genius gone mad.
A shocking reminder of all that is forgotten.
That all will be…forgotten.
The unforgiving clock.
Moving time.
Time, a father, whose knee will be outgrown.
A chastising father.
Protecting nothing.
Holding nothing.
Nothing calm.
Holding nothing safe.
Nothing still.
Curse that clock on the wall.
On walls dropping picture frames.
Loosened by rusty nails.
Images of families smothered in broken glass.
The clock.
TICK-TOCK!
Burning down homes that cradled infants.
With fatty folds and creamy dreams.
The clock, convincing people to set alarms.
Convincing people to startle the soul…
Into a brand-new day.
This weathering vessel that casts about
A barge adrift in the river of lies.
My crumbling ship, my hopes all cast in doubt
I navigate past cults of crying eyes.
This rusting old tanker betrays my flame
My boy joy driving fervent flaring glare.
I’m no match for terror by any name
Scant my Ali fist-words striking the air.
This floating worn casket my last cradle
I can’t go while hate burns from the sewers.
And Earth seethes and chokes fumes unnatural
But who breathes once guns fire from hate’s snipers?
I cruise this clumsy tub to open sea
And give my dwindling days to speak freely.
The oldest voices whisper below the ground.
Hands pull on roots — wind-beaten, gnarled —
stories woven through the fabric of time.
Bark peeled slick, leaves flattened,
the wisdom of what makes whole lies
between finger and thumb,
passed along like a flame, a prayer.
But the soil only knows part of the story.
The other half lives in breath,
a noise wafting through the room —
a voice wrapping itself around the injured,
knitting them back into themselves,
as if words alone could summon strength,
draw poison from blood.
And when the breath becomes thin,
when there’s no salve to ease the pain,
there is no anger here.
Only the stillness of understanding:
death is on the far side of the cure.
The visceral pains were sharp, stinging and stern!
She swallowed them, in the bloody biting bitterness.
The gory talons of the fat obstetricians hung loose,
Ready to clamour for the afterbirth, salivating like hungry female canines.
“Think of the baby,” said the stony-hearted, vampire-looking hag;
Whose fat mouth dripped blood.
Back home, a shrieking owlet flew over her husband’s hut.
A strange whirlwind shot through the door, and tore the roof atwain.
The news broke: she had gone mortis gestationalis!
The evil child had popped out his left leg first, in protest;
And had strangled mama with its hands - from inside!
It was not about the flat-tyred ambulance.
The drunken doctor,
Who stored his equipment at Mama Phina’s bar, was not to blame.
Neither was it about the theft of sanitisers and lignocaine,
Nor was it about the leaking roofs;
And the stench all around.
It was the craving for sweet blood and tender baby flesh!
William Smelly lay snug in his grave,
As we lowered the two caskets to their final resting place.
One carried a dysfunctional human factory,
And the other was empty.
My mortality,
I once deemed far away
For I was young and strapping
But winds of time cause thinking to sway
Bringing thoughts to bear of my eternal napping.
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TOM WRIGHT
Brother Larry,
When young, mortality,
Scarcely garners many passing thoughts,
But winds of time metamorphoses our thoughts
From what was, and is, into what will be.
The greatest decision we are called upon to make in life
Is the acceptance or rejection of Jesus.
This determines where our eternal sleep will be.
You did a superb job at Sister Irene’s funeral
A job that we could never have done;
Hence the reason that God gave differing talents.
We pray that everyone in attendance
Has taken a hard look at their life.
We are so proud and thankful
For the young man that you have become,
And feel privileged to call you our nephew.
God Bless you and your family
In all that the Lord leads you to do.
Be it that I am doomed to walk the Earth
In fear of time - measured in mere fractions;
Starlight grants me comfort with twinkling mirth,
Lost in wakes of dread deeper than oceans.
I'd ask what it means to live over time,
of paupers; preachers; aristocrats, too -
why lives are measured in short centuries.
For stars, it is nothing if not untrue.
A middle child with no hope to call mine;
with stately manners, I protest, "I'm fine,
doomed to be but shadows and memories."
Stardust divines our eager fingerprints
imbued on the walls of our history:
generations defined by reticence
and willful blindness to its mystery.
I'd ask what it means to swallow my fears,
of gods and kings and legends in their prime,
to carve in my heart courage that's blinding -
Like stars whose light shines long after their time.
O' Father I'll pray the rest of my years
through the funeral rites and birthday cheers,
"Grant me the stars when life stops rewinding."
With tired devotion left in my soul
I'll shatter the world to see what I'm worth -
memories that used to make me feel whole,
buried like innocence lost in childbirth.
I'll say what it means to temper my pride
to mothers and fathers, both who are lost,
Silently waiting till we come of age.
It's the ones you bring up that bear the cost.
Tell your kids before their eyes open wide;
Before their lungs, filled with air, rise like the tide;
"Stand and face your mortality with rage!"
Another passing, quiet tears
A time of reckoning, a few more beers
Once wooded, now populated, concrete
Where crickets chirped, now a street
Dreams dying, goals unreached, a new reality
Coming face to face with your own mortality
Material achievement, awards on the wall
Of no real value, please take them all
To change the world but the drive is gone
There's a torch still burning, can you pass it on
Stars in the sky whose light will not diminish
Journey toward dreams that you'll never finish
There is a peace in memories, pain doesn't last
The future intimidates but not the past
Different roads but the same destination
Reaching back in sheer frustration
Fearing places where we don't know what we'll find
Thinking back to all we left behind
Another passing, quiet tears
A time of reckoning, a few more beers.
the ocean existed before me
the waves do not cease
in my wake
An earthly existence
A universe beyond my minds, comprehension
I die
I rise
Life lessons reviewed
Homeward bound
I am not lost, after all!
I am a willing participant
Serving, the Father, of all creation
His son combined, ‘producing life’ as we know it
Representing them, in everything I do
I am nothing, without Love!
My heart full of faith, loyal service I give
Learning how to unconditionally serve, as the Father unconditionally, loves me
Worshipping our Divine Creator’s existence
Choosing to live, moment to moment
Being as one with ‘Our Universal Father’
No physical permanency
My physicality, disappearing
My mortality existence, I let go of
Death temporary
My spirit alive!
Relief, Peace
‘I am only passing through!’
A unique, experience of mortality
A gift, I am blessed to experience, to live!
Like fragranced flowers soon will lose their smell
and colors fade from red to light pastel,
my body, now, will rot awaiting hell
as those I love have proffered to foretell.
Yet love is but a moments fleeting gift.
In passion’s heat it purges heart and soul
and in the end it leaves our mind adrift
too weak in lust to understand the toll.
So let the flames consume the mortal me,
no mourners at my grave to cry or grieve,
nor loss to life, my end could ever be,
with final breath, I’ll rise and quiet leave.
When gone, you see, is your antipathy,
pray not for me I need no sympathy.
10/21/2017
I wonder if I’m the only one
who smells the fetidness
of dead daylilies,
carrion that lies concealed
off the beaten path.
Could it be my preoccupation with death lately?
Reviewing my will, perusing my prepaid
funeral expenses and life insurance,
that have acutely enhanced
my sense of smell for the morbidities
of death.
It’s not a pleasant state of mind
to live with and act unconcerned
concerning the inevitable conqueror worm.