For Derek. . .

Whence comes this unending sorrow

Listless and melancholy.  Absorbed in otherwise mundane tasks consuming too much time.  Afraid of change yet desperately seeking it nonetheless.  Lonely without being alone.  Crying in the emptiness of time forever lost to me.  Yesterdays breeding lamentations, todays overflowing with heartache, and tomorrows forever betraying life with promises unfulfilled.  Existing without touching the world or being touched by it.  Hopeless repetition.  Thoughts locked away in dungeons of professionalism.  Mired in ruts of survival.  Dreams undreamt, dashed against the rocky shores of oceanic desolation.  Parched lips of mind and soul eternally unable to quench my thirst for living.  Tormented by sorrows deep.  Regrets springing forth at every turn.  A cacophony of demands inundating me from all directions.  Still, I disregard that which is most important and allow myself to linger in this place.

you shall above all things be glad and young (always e.e.cummings to the rescue!)

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

Melancholy

In flames, not fire, burns the pyre sat upon the shore
Of oceans great in measured hate, loss rends me to the core
How dark the lair of cold despair whence the heart now cries
Tears cast in loss spill on my cross, upon its frame this dies

Touched my brow I know not how beads of blood and sweat
Worlds of anger trace the danger killing what is wept
Soulless spirit cannot hear it deafened by silent noise
Lament the cry and wonder why true happiness destroys

Hope be not found in soured ground, the spirits of regret
Wherein I bide with selfish pride, sorrows to forget
Know not when the pain’s not been since cast in memory’s keep
And weep the mind that lost in kind of his eternal sleep

Flesh to ashes, emotion crashes, lend me once again
The heart of pure and wit endure, betray my own chagrin
Dashed be hope, to life I grope, reflections in the pool
Of memory mine on which I dine, a board of life too cruel

The specter comes to him undone and takes within the breath
That final hour atop the tower, a staircase up to death
Clear vistas call and end it all in lamentable distress
As skeletal hands the hourglass sands magically caress

Adieu is bid in which love hid to brethren far and wide
Friend and foe that now must go on this his final tide
Wind and waves to resting graves erect upon the shore
Demand I must, turn not to dust, I surely must needs more

Stand on ground of hallowed sound ‘twixt two like you and I
Cold and bitter lost lives litter for all will surely die
To not allay in bleak dismay what clearly can’t be kept
A heart of gold, now life untold, to the stinging end I wept

Goodbye, my friend, to you I send all happiness and joy
Bled from my soul no longer whole like all the hoi polloi
Zeal and zest at life’s behest lost to those behind
To that we had, inherent glad, lost in time and mind

Fare the well, my bitter friend

Just as the days close upon themselves under midnight’s shadow
Warned, I did, of countless dangers wrought of younger’s callow
Fare thee good and well, my bitter friend; unto self be gone
Beseeched in heartless rending that which cannot be withdrawn

Littered by the bones of other ones stands the road of love
Undone by magic, mysteries, moments; none we can know of
Bereft; consumed on altar thine; appeased by angry greed
Climb up; cast down; reach and weep for desperation’s need

Apart, together journeyed for years yet progress know we not
Our hearts cry loud in lamentation for what our time has wrought
Fear we know; hope we dream; shed blood in sacrifice
Nature’s anguished, cosmos angered, passion no longer will suffice

Foresee this ending final day in life and death writ upon our souls
Sailed upon waters still, our ships now lost, our torment consoles
Rest eternal in death’s embrace and pain yourself no more
See upon the endless ocean standing your final sandy shore

In silence, loud and pressing, hear your voice and singing loud
What’s left behind obliges not for those cloaked by darkest shroud
This we know at life’s goodbye: living’s extinguished light
Diminishes no more and returns to you all your sources bright

Head resting upon the bed that encloses this, your last hour
Small hands embrace fate’s hourglass to see you finally flower
Gasp not at rest to see the tears of those witness to your demise
No obligation have you; now release yourself from cries

Fare thee well, my bitter friend, and your self be once again
Memory’s keep shall hold us all embraced, remembering when
Your stature tall, wit cunning and sharp; nurtured by simple life
Be gone from this world, be burdened not, and carry no more strife