Death met at work, a months' long livestock voyage
Appalling fate found forty men in ocean's contempt
Churned in days' worth of typhoon crazed torment
Upside down violence turned trapped crew to carnage
Water walled onslaught slammed seafaring stronghold
Cattle float stark on dark ocean, hooves raised, bloated
Vets embarked the journey, to bovine well-being devoted
Vessel of mass measures, by sea vehemence controlled
Taken from life during a shift, loyal young strong sailors
Skilled handlers, pined for infant families, scared at home
Mammoth stern dug beneath unending depth, groaned
Instruments steady didn't warn of ceilings spray showers
Tenacity kept crew clutching straws in relentless storm
Hull refused her duty, rising cold belly swamped within
Dutiful men tended soiled stock, their outlook grim
Windows disguised skywards, horizon stolen in scorn
Deck gave only feasible exit point, though death due either way
Going under or leaping off, bodies driven on stiff vein adrenalin
Forty faithful crew, prisoners in their workplace, remember them
Ninety children learn that dire time leaves their lives in disarray
7th September 2020
"Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces" John Ruskin, 1853
.
alone
all
…
leaving the other
against rough rocks,
a boat
within, crashed
but the turbulent,
purple lips.
their becalmed
on
wearing an enticing smile
that were bubbling up,
They drifted abreast in waters
to this rickety boat.
was a welcome sight
looking for alliance to reach a haven
Another boat drifting equally alone
hissed his pains and desires.
boat that
nor did they feel the pains of this rickety
and soaked their rough, coarse feet;
them
that danced around
rocks that felt no warmth of waves
around craggy rocks, cold, rough rocks:
in stormy high seas, was drifting
A rickety boat, blown by a storm
Here lies a single piece,
a disfigured fragment, of his
voyage in the vast sea of life.
Aug. 25, 2020
*A 4th Place*
in Constance La France's contest "All the Little Pieces" judged on Sept. 3, 2020
Seal your heart
So no one can touch.
Weld it shut
So no one can penetrate.
Fill the cracks
So no one can see.
Bolt the door
and throw away the key.
Rebecca .a. Huxley
Spelunking in an uncharted cave,
the earth shakes;
my flashlight shuts down
and I feel my way
through a tactile ebony darkness.
A chill seeps into my bones;
sending a shiver up my spine
as scary thoughts occupy my mind.
And an emptiness
hollows out my soul,
cutting, my anchor line to reality.
Fear drips from my pores;
pooling in my heart
where hope drowns.
Feeling forsaken,
and abandoned to my fate;
solitude is oppressive and all-consuming.
I'm trapped; entombed in the bowels
of a collapsed cave,
and my heart cries out
for the faintest glimmer of light.
Plagued by fear and anxieties
I sense evil lurking
in the ebon shadows;
instantly paralyzing reason.
And I feel strangled;
as an oppressive blackness,
chokes me; leaving me gasping,
while I slowly run out of air.
In Siberia, orphaned babies die
secured with ropes, workers seldom untie.
And amidst filth and stench, they gasp for air
ignored by everyone who ought to care.
Helpless souls entombed as if in a womb,
swaddled in shrouds where there's so little room.
And the tight enclosure drives them insane
racked with anguish and incredible pain.
Infants view life through cold iron bars
riddled with self-inflicted wounds and scars.
But humanity seems more than willing
to ignore this newest form of killing.
Every human has the right to breathe free,
not cruelly bound, where no one can see.
But these bundles of life await death's call,
as the weak and injured die where they fall.
Left to their nightmares and torments as such
without a kind word or gentle touch.
And feeble bodies house imprisoned minds,
pray God doesn't judge Man by what He finds.
7/12/2017
A windowless mansion stands on a no man`s land
In it there`s a dark tomb made by my own hand
Here I`m buried with memories I treasure, here
I`m tormented by sensations of pain and pleasure
Every thought of you is a new brick in the wall
Images of fantasies decorate the haunted hall
I summoned angels, wished they lived with me here
But they turned into demons of jealousy and fear
Such sinister creatures know nothing of charity
The price for my pleasures will be my sanity
the bewitching hour--
silence hangs heavy like fog
claw prints on window
mist seeping through cracks
swallow soft comforting warmth
bedroom sealed--entombed
~*~
For Tracie's "Spooky Ku" Contest
10/21/12
clouds form to release the tears of forgotten children and with so shall this depravity baptize me in sin, i become so very cold as the droplets of neglected sorrow fall and stream upon my withering skin, the physical wounds shall mend but the psychological wounds will forever stay fresh, i bathe amongst darkness as i rip away at my deteriorating flesh. if you take my hand and attempt to save me you will just fall as well, the suffering is beyond what sociological expressionism could ever tell, if you believe in heaven then i guess this would be hell. i have nothing left and without my presence i hardly even exist, salvation lies at the end of a rope or from wounds carved into the wrist, open your mind and perceive what we have all become, take my advice "it is always better to feel pain than to be completely numb." leave me to die amongst the blistering frost, a place where all hope is forever lost, the place i found when the line of insanity was finally crossed, i have found my home within this self imprisoning holocaust.
Parting is such sweet sorrow,
When love's air is still there,
But when the flame flickers out,
And the wax dries,
Love is sealed;
There is no air.
Until the stamp,
Is peeled.
Love's lepers are we,
Who pick at the wound,
And bleed out life's blood,
Until, we too,
Are Entombed.
the end of the year's day
consumed in the setting sun,
subsumed into shadow.
a world destroyed
before begun.
twirling axis
centered
on a polar energetic praxis
cleansed in tides rising
entombed in lunar lapses.
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