I awake and here I am,
naught but a mere mortal man.
Why came I this weak way,
restrained in fragile skin,
little but stiffened clay,
imprisoned as are all men?
Flesh will away, that soon day,
to the dust where it had been.
Then I will really be Me,
with mind and soul soaring free.
- Darrell Simmerman copyright 2024
This summer found men mortal
I’ll miss the better nature you find at the beach,
but goodness isn’t always a physical thing.
In the scene wherein we played,
—earlier this summer—
the sky was an azured theatre of taming heat
all colours seemingly washed too bright
and true to the ramping prophecies of science,
vital waterways shrank, and forests burned
with the devil’s own violence
Equal scales weigh though
both on the world’s beauty
and the miracles of men
though one’s a lower brand of perfection.
I know things of relative value when I see them, hold
and feel them, like the indisputable metric of gold
While nature has sand and majestic suns,
men, as sovereign masters of base elements
invented air conditioning, and Fruity Pebbles.
Should summer be invited back next year?
.
.
A song for this
the boys are back in town by thin lizzy
So sad the eye
That look upon another sunrise
That seems, a light, meaningless without you
For our love last outshined the brilliant sun
And all the lesser dimming shades we shun.
Our source bound as one
Continuous gleam of warming virtue
That blue-clad the golden sky—
But mortals die
And one day even I
Will fade from view.
The sun knowing only gloom
Exists beyond its sphere
Like the loneliness of this room
That calls you near
To comfort thro'
The night's despair—
Shades closed
Curtains drawn,
No moon
No stars
No dawn
(For Keith)
Strands of DNA do what our life does
Coil in pairs, bonding with available others
To define one’s self,
As above, so below
As within, so without,
And so it goes, our lives spiraling onward
And outward
A path beyond our control
A path filled with chance meetings
In a world where nothing is really left to chance
A path of change if nothing else
Spiraling ‘round our changeless nature
And all for what?
The chance to simply be
In the doing
The chance to love and know others
And so get glimpses of ourselves
In joy and sorrow
Sharing it all as it goes
Round and round
This mortal coil has a beginning and end
But surely Life goes on
Within us and without us
Leaving its mark
So easily recalled
With the smile upon their face
(8/20/26)
When dawn arrives
my shadow rises before I do,
climbing the morning wall,
as if my spirit were impatient
with my body's waking.
Sometimes it drags behind,
my soul weary from having seen too much
of the world’s suffering.
Yet in the hour when the sky
spills its molten gold across the earth,
my shadow grows vast...
like some celestial titan
cast from my small frame,
as though the universe remembers
what I once was
before I was made mortal.
Mortal man becomes myth with the passage of time
in poetry and song, he is duly enshrined
Yet I remember when myth once bounced on my knee
~ and teaching him when to say thank-you and please
Life is no accident-it is a fragile monument adrift upon the relentless river of time.
Drawn toward the quicksand of ignorance, the shadows of greed, and the venomous whirlpool of hatred, it stands on the edge of oblivion.
Yet even in the deepest darkness, one spark of conscience endures; one quiet flame refuses to be extinguished.
When compassion awakens, violence begins to lose its voice. When truth rises, fear surrenders to light.
Beyond the brief horizon of mortality, neither wealth nor power survives-only the love we have shared, the peace we have nurtured, and the humanity we have chosen echo into eternity.
If I'm to be
In a world where
We are possessed
By the dreams
And nightmares, where
None may say,
Then I choose
To be with you
And only you.
And when all this world
Has turned to grey,
The stars have stopped,
No light remains,
Black is gone,
No night surrounds,
Nothings left
Nor does remain,
I will know
I had spent
All my mortal days
Loving you, and only you.
And when all this clay
Has turned to ash
The dust is gone
No star remains
I will know,
I love you still.
And when we are
Past the time
When all the dreams
Have gone away
The Nightmares died
And are no more
I will know,
I love you still,
As I did
All my days.
And
When not an Angels left to cry,
For our kind
Not a demon does remain, to punish us
For our crimes
Not a soul, is
Anywhere
I will know,
I love you still,
As I always have,
And always will.
Wherever you roam, the shadow of death,
Keeps dancing upon the rhythm of your breath,
As and when the rhythm ceases its measure,
Your life dissolves into the black shadow of death.
You work day and night for some hollow delight,
You sacrifice your rest, consumed by restless nights,
Every fleeting moment poured into empty pleasure,
At the end of the day, you find yourself prey to decay's diet.
Histories and all the stories hum a hymn of glory,
For which every life became a black and white story,
All heroes got no chance to dance upon the songs,
Of their epic and immortal tales of glorious victory.
The souls are intoxicated by the drug of the maze of life,
A husband is dying to satisfy his beautiful wife,
All the wives are making efforts to control their husbands,
Childhood dissolving into oldness follows the mortal rite.
Drifting
on a vast ocean
emerald spangled
calling to celestial plains
of the lost citadel
where forgotten tribes
communed in radiant silence
and telepathed secrets
beyond the mortal prophesies
of sages.
rapists are being freed from the jail
life imprisonment getting decreased to just 'fine'
judges have forgot the justice that shelters them
and the lady of justice is slowly losing her powers
the survivors are being detained for protesting
the rapists belongs to a powerful house,
who holds the key of the nation and they are
busy sheltering the one who should rot in a cell
justice is now just a mortal concept
it can no longer protect the interests of people
the forces that are commanded by her in sacred court
now gives more power to the rapists
I drape your darkened night in sheets of white,
Making you shiver under my dense flakes;
To hide your blighted roots from mortal sight,
I pour my drifting crystals in your lakes—
Your whispered warmth in return is all it takes.
The wind I fashion blows with silent chill;
I bury all your tender skin in wool.
Your fun, I shift beside the fireside’s thrill—
Warm drinks I set by your warm hands to pull,
Though I creep cold-footed, still my smile is full.
I hide the tilling of your soil beneath coldness,
And blight in the seeds of your barn I heal,
So that your planting season stands clothed in boldness—
A whispered promise I set beneath your heel,
While from the sky thick drifting flakes I steal.
My mission finished, then I give you way,
For grace in me to meet the gentle sun,
Who dries the sweat concealed in warmer day
And widens paths for open-fielded fun—
But not until my quiet work is done.
~The breath drawn deep is but a borrowed stay,
~~A fleeting spark within the endless night,
~~~~Where light and shadow's. in a silent play,
~Will fade and flicker, in the morning light.
~~~~~~~The bud unfurls, a vibrant splash of green,
~Bloom in sunlight, then wilt in autumn's chill;
~~~~~~~~~~~~ragile beauty on a fleeting scene,
~~~~~~~~Caroming seasons on a lonely hill.
~~~~~~~~~~~So man appears, a whisper in the wind,
~~~ A passing thought in time's unconcerned hand,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A story written, ultimately sinned,
~ ~~~~~~~~~Before the final grains of silver sand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~We rise and fall, as ocean's restless tide,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Where the universe enigmas reside.
“Why bother with these irredeemable men?”
I must — for you see,
what you claim ruined belongs to me.
For I am their king —
scourged,
the most ruined of them all.
Behold my kingdom:
a nest of birds with broken wings,
whose mother — disturbed —
has left them to fall.
I weep for the breadth of its lifelessness,
and to the abandoned — comfort I bring.
For I am their empathy —
deliverance by mercy unto the broken.
I swear by the name of our collective reclaim:
may you who suffer — come one, come all.
"A Christ who has become one of us completely —
no longer a god-man among mortals, but a mortal-god of mortals."
I hate how limiting our human lives are
I want to be a mother,a father,childless
I want to travel,stay at home,grow
Forever limited by an invisible timer
I want to be a daughter,a son,a fallen star
Something unlimited by my form,raw
There’s too many things I want to do
And so many I do not
I’m not afraid of dying
I’m afraid of not trying
Not leaving a mark
Not leaving a trace of my existence
I want to be known but not seen
I want the applause but not the attention
No, I don’t want to be immortal
Just want my existence to be internal
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