We’re joyful of the bassinet,
And fearful of the casket.
One, a place where life is new,
The other where the body’s through.
Bassinets, though temporary
Start a life’s eternal tarry.
Bassinets reveal new birth,
And caskets case a family’s mirth.
In bassinets, lie new creations,
While caskets are a demarcation:
A point in time when death imparts
Eternity as flesh departs.
In silence, contemplate the casket
Then voice the question if you’ll ask it:
We all have had our bassinets,
But who is ready for the casket?
Our time on earth is fleeting, feign;
For after death, forever reigns.
Bassinets begin life’s option:
To follow God and His adoption.
Set not your heart on passing pleasures,
But seek the Lord’s eternal treasures.
So when a casket lays you down,
You’ll rise again, forever crowned.
Psalm 49:15 “But God will redeem my life from the grave;
he will surely take me to himself. Selah NIV
(A lone voice whispers)
As individuals, we don't sometimes realise the scope of utter hopelessness, until we unknowingly endure it
Or witness it
But within all that emotional spiritual warfare
A glorious Demarcation Zone always exists
Between
Pain and Salvation
Just awaiting courageous souls to cross it
To reach a new emotional nation
To find a new paradigm of looking at something filled with hope
To cope
A whisper of something glorious
Something to soothe the courageous
So when Hopelessness strikes
Look deep inside and hear that inner voice whisper
Hold strong
Try to stay the course
Cling on to your strength
Let's cross over
The Demarcation Zone
So when darkness looms
When all things seem despondent and desperate
Like Wormwood Star
The Dark Comet
Always remember
Your part in The Great Game
Is not over yet
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
A demarcation zone is a boundary or limit that separates two areas.
In this case, Hopelessness and Hope.
Demarcation Lines
. for public domain
With demarcation lines obscured
from what is clear, what is absurd,
what makes sense, what makes no sense,
our soul's exchequer bears the expense.
And so too our capacity for dreams,
to treasure our own, not another man's schemes,
or programmed plots from computer game scenes,
or scripted stories on tv screens.
Loose the sense of who you are,
but make it your own decision,
not imposed by those who regard
your authenticity with derision.
thoughts lick at my consciousness
distracting me from the warm embrace
of the colour pallet unfolding
I stare with myopic eyes at the kaleidoscope
endeavouring to discern the demarcation
of the edge of each shade
naming them as though they are listed on a colour chart
displayed at the local hardware store
but as soon as I have one splash of tint pinned down
it fades to be replaced by a more pleasing explosion of colour
a child’s toy impatiently twirled
a rainbow snipped into a multitude of shapes
in never to be repeated patterns
like an uxorious husband
it enfolds the evening sky in its loving embrace
its fleece soft fingers exploring
lulled into a unison of consent
with a barely perceptible rush of contentment
a slight sibilant sigh issues
memorialising daylight
clinging to the fringes of observation
the scene depicts its titular character
of moral decay
the riparian area jealously guards its supremacy
as hydrophilic plants are robbed of their splendour
in a final display of defiance
alluvial fans buffet against the offing
recombobulating
the natural order of Chaos:
The Great Deep of ancient mythology
The very essence of my cells vibrate with exuberance for his love, grace, kindness, and blessings.
In conversations during the day, the creator is my roots and faith in the doctor that provides all my dressings.
An innate source residing in the heart, the center of all centers, and connected to everything.
We all as one, are here to experience, develop and expand to find your loving purpose for which angels celebrate and sing.
We all are one humble ingredient, each a drop from the eternal, an ever-expanding ocean of abundance in union with all.
There are no lines of demarcation, never a disconnection, no delineation, and never a separation, and will always answer the call.
The veil has been lifted uncovering the degradation of separation which must be eliminated.
Those dark forces that rule, manipulate, and control the masses will be uncovered and disgraced, and new positions in government will be relegated.
The difference between
denotation and detonation
~ one of nuclear demarcation
Life is –
Beyond definition, delineation or demarcation
A puzzle, more – a riddle!!
A hard nut too difficult to crack
An ocean deep with swirls and twists!!
None has seen it in full length or breadth
Rare, it takes the course we chart
Like travelers within a phantom ship,
We sail past to far unknown lands.
Through rugged waves, we drift along,
Either to perish or to be cast ashore
So elusive, Life remains,
Like the mirage over the stretch of sands.
Seems so easily within grasp
But far, it recedes out of grip.
Like a juggler performing tricks,
It holds people to watch and wonder.
Life remains a complex sum,
Far beyond our power to solve
Why rake your brain to fathom out?
Why knit your brow and look beyond?
Safe it is-
And wiser still-
To stay awake,
And take things in their stride.
June.29.2022
Life is Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Nayda Ivetta Negron Flores
Your father is neither dead nor is he sleeping.
He has traversed the thin line of demarcation
Into a marvelous dimension of safe-keeping,
Consider it a marvelous realm of preparation
For what we earthlings refer to as eternity,
An exciting adventure into the vast unknown
Frightening, our limited concepts of infinity,
Where true being-ness in never outgrown,
The gracious Almighty sits on the throne.
No end to the delights of the ultimate reality
To this place your father has quickly flown
Where he shall experience no law of gravity,
Beyond all fantasies of human expectation
Where no longer is one exposed to weeping,
We might think of it as an awesome vacation
Your father is neither dead nor is he sleeping.
Written June 18, 2022
[utilizing my own verso-rhyme]
The first few years of life
is little different
than death or dreamless sleep
There is nothing we can recall
as if we didn’t exist at all
events failing to stick
like an omelet sliding perfectly
from a Teflon pan onto a plate
or sand slipping
through splayed fingers
Then for a time there are
fleeting flashes of cognizance
captured like faded photographs
pasted on the fragile pages
of an old scrapbook
sans captions to provide context
Next we simply ‘are’
with no fanfare
as if we’ve always been
no light bulb of realization
no line of demarcation
believing that we matter
in the scheme of things
which is when our sorrow begins
the world proceeding as it spins
as it did before our birth
and will continue to do after our end
to disabuse us of that naïve notion
I
A poem is struggling within
Finished and unfinished, a thin
Line of demarcation. I mark your words
They germinate, but like swords
Diction bears contradictions in wombs
Some do good, some usher us to tombs
II
So, it's not love or hate, not that mix
I'm struggling to let it out, find a fix
For what ails my soul. My heart happy
My will, patience strong, streets unhappy
The environment - a topic for another day -
Is it my conscience, aesthetic sense & sway
That irk me, as evening & sunset beckon
Yet your words like 'silence' & waves & skies beckon
If I write of True Peace, true coexistence, His creation
Will I abort the poem, or meaning, deLiGHTful Imagination
It fell upon
My neighbor’s house
Not mine.
I was dry the sky was soaking
Looking where the rain was falling
A sheet – no a wall of wet and
Me outside of it.
How?
How and why this demarcation,
This sharp exactness?
I put my hand - my left hand
Into the falling rain.
It did not get wet
Yet
The downpour grew stronger
Fell heaver and longer
And I still dry
Watching the falling curtain,
Uncertain
How this could be
Happening?
I called to my dog
To come outside
To look to see.
She looked and stopped
Wagging its tail.
Then thunder clapped its ears,
She ran inside under the
coffee table.
Thunder stuck me also
The rain had fallen upon us
A great ocean of it
Just on us.
Has this happened before?
I had to wonder a lot.
Back indoors
Both damp and drying
I think I overheard God laughing.
Wire in contact sounds sweet
Takes me to a bird very far
Delighted when I touch wire
Through the air-we live.
With demarcation you shrink
The fear has no exception
Both parts stagger
We all stammer
The wire carries my hope
Thy fortitude crawls to my end
Until it dominates in my nerves.
The picture on the wire is fresh!
Century of miles covered in seconds
Heinous efforts thwarted by wire
Copper is too hot
Dissipates heat to my flesh
Delivers passion to my heart.
I spit tender affection!
Meanwhile you see tomorrow emulsified
How on the last lap?
No genre demarcates - my genius
The purple passion you taught lives
What of more today?
Spread a grin to my face!
At one time,
(a time so broad
that it knew no ownership),
at one time
the world was wide,
there were no nations, no distinctions
just naked humans in a well clothed landscape.
Then came the thought of ‘race.’
The hunter gatherers became farmers
they built walled cities
and every wall was a demarcation.
The actual clothes they wore
became a status symbol,
and so the poor had to feed the wealthy
and the wealthy owned the poor.
The earth began to fracture
most of the sparsely populated wide open
became the over-populated narrows.
Until one side of a street
was at war with the other side.
Hunter gathers still existed
but they lived on the margins
they survived
only by the consent
of the people crowded into the narrows.
If they really tried to be naked and free
the narrow people
would make TV shows about them,
pretty soon
they also become narrow images
moving inside a picture frame place
that once was frameless.
I am not a violent person
in any physical way,
but if love were a fight
I would fight you this day.
If love were a fight,
I would fight you all night
under twinkling stars
by the full moon light.
If love were a fight
I would fight you near the Ocean,
where the rolling weaves
are poetry in motion.
I would fight you in the depths
of the deep blue sea.
As your lover,
I would fight you
for every moment
you spend with me.
If love were a fight
I would fight you in the desert,
as twilight sets fire
to the sun baked sands,
I would fight you
across the mountain tops,
I hope you understand.
That I will never tire in my desire,
nor will I seek any rest.
Fore I will give it my all,
and fight you
with my last breath.
If love were a fight
I would show no mercy,
give no quarter,
respect no time line
demarcation or border.
I would kick Godzilla in the knees.
Call Goliath a punk.
Resurrect Houdini
and leave him
trapped in a trunk.
If love were a fight,
there is no limit
to what I would do.
But I would thank God,
I'm fighting with you.
Green patches
of lawn
surrounded by
flurries of leaves
demarcation lines
peace zones
Occasional puffs of wind
light, easy, unhurried
scatter a few stragglers --
swept along
a couple or three meters
then still
at rest again
they await last rites...
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