So many gone

In the blink of an eye

You raise you eyebrows

And ask why

A void answers

That is it must be

You once weren’t

Tomorrow you cease to be

And yet in the corridors

One searches for the sound

One so hated to hear

Now wishes was around

And you wonder who’s the ghost?

The ones gone or the ones living?

Those gone had a reason to give

Who’s left who’s worth giving?

Put yourself in those Kong’s feet

Knowing you’ll measure to what they were:

The huge head’s mane, and the growling roar

Only to feel fluff and nothing but a whisper

You feel they left a legacy

Of awe composed of nothing but vocals

You wonder what legacy you’ll leave

When those around you now don’t see you as focal?

You hope you’ll impress the young

Like young you were once impressed.

But the young’s virtual life outlives yours

And you’re left wondering for what are you pressed?

So, you roam the walls in human form

Feeling you are more soul than substance

And one day that will be just the norm

As you look from above and see

How fare them those who saw you as sustenance?

Left a stamp on the world

Simply by being in it

Everyone leaves soul print

Just by occupying a minute

No one sees the sneers

Judgements in the making

No one shares the fears

Being just too busy taking

No one remembers the favors

That were volunteered in vulnerability

But one less a volcano blows

Suspect of destabilizing sustainability.

No one foretells the future

Like the one who predicts every foul

And acts to protect the pack

And is a songbird morphed into an owl

Then all of a sudden it’s just an echo

And those left are in disbelief

And torn between the two

A feeling of guilt or of relief?

Soon, the echo becomes a trail in the air

Traced almost by none except a few

Can the one whose voice filled the void

Be so mute to the ones who he by heart he knew?

Hey there

Heard the news?

They tell you everything will be alright

Then just go ahead and change day to darkest night

But it’s alright

You’re still alive

You’re still part of the hive

Do your part and don’t question the queen

There are worst things you’ve never seen

Don’t understand what love is? Who cares

Enjoy it while you can, even if you get the knock off

Who’s to say how genuine you are

You’re judge, jury and executioner

Have you got one of those?

Who tell you one thing and do another

Who promise you the moon and deliver it burned on a toast?

They care about you but in their own way

You never understand because you don’t get to see

They question every move and wonder what made you come their way

If only you got removed, life would be a better place to stay

But, there you go, everyone is a needless dot deleted one by one

And the dots are gone and we’re back to the dinosaurs

We didn’t hurt each other because we didn’t mean to

And who means to hurt another like him in form, texture, vibes, and hopes

Certainly not! Survival for the fittest means some sorts are just that sore.

Well, Shakespeare gave us a summer day

Marlowe dipped us in gruesome love

Swift swiftly traded that for the mind

And T.S just wrote the whole thing off

Then Yeats re-shaped love and loss

And Joyce just made it feel worthless

Why war-torn heads from hearts poets

Just pointed out man is faulty and ruthless

And the midst there was a like-minded farmer

Who chose the road less taken by

And taught a generation that there’s loss

And there’s a better way to try

Larkin came in the age of the nukes

And laid it all to waste because it was

Hope was hanging up not coming down

No amount of words could do it: poetry or prose

Then here we are; nuke impotent; a new millennium

Then we filled it with more of the same

We don’t fight sword to sword any more

Our blades are longer and sharper rudely tearing any terrain

What an age of innocence Frost’s was

Reaching for the stars with a harvest

With words that touched the heart

That people lay them out to say their best

Now, people stand on two sides of the slaughter

And human life is just….human life, no more

Keep the words of Frost ‘I have promises to keep’

Not Poe’s ‘Only this: nevermore’

Here’s to the tales they tell ya

That there’s a good fella

Who’ll fall in love with Cinderella

And the proposals they propose

That love has its repose

That’s it’s and effect without a cause

Then head out, a sailor to sea

Wait for the mischief they tell ya will be

Eager to be an enigma in a mist of mystery

And lady luck will come in clones

And lucky charms will tickle your tones

You’ll be laughing; chilled to the bones

Then you walk into what’s left of a battle

And you see the snake and rattle

Right there in the middle of the cattle

And Cinderella kicks off her shiny shoes

And teaches a good guy a game of ruse

Double jeopardy; you choose not to choose

And you see the other window pane

You see the crowd, some left, then all came

And you’re wondering who to blame

You hear the Joneses Just got back from Hawaii

You wonder if the water was crisp, the weather was dry

Then your turn your eyes to the blue sky

Isn’t the same one that told an old story

Isn’t the same one that lured is all good and glory

Why did it hide the part where it’s cruel and gory?

You check your feet on the ground, and click your heels

Maybe the ground will change to how it once used to feel

But that’s a cliff hanger, soon, fancy that; snap; it’s real.

I remember a summer haze

A warmth embracing a world

And two girls in a balcony

Drawing a question mark in the air unfurled

And laugh how the future

Will be a place of welcome land

And no matter the odds

They’ll overcome and understand

No doubt inspired by parents

Who knit for them the pattern of the past

And seemed the tapestry will just extend

To reach the last one who’d last

Gone are the girls and their warm other days

Now the balcony stands, question mark evaporated

And I try to survive blazing heat instead of happy haze

I wonder where they are now? In the world they created?

Two lonely girls; two lonely guys; how do they now fare

In a world that claims opposites detract

Definitely, every fair from fair declines; just not fair

To have love in the air; but no one to attract

When words end

Where will I be?

Who then will be my friend

If I don’t whisper to me?

Words remain the lit lens

Of the lighthouse touching ships

Allowing them across suspense

Bows proud over sea’s tips and dips

Words are thrown in the air

Some land and some are lost in translation.

But on a paper where they pair

With a solid that holds them for generations

Words ask a service

To remain heard and read

They ask to stay in business

Silence is not the best instead

Words are needed

For the deaf tyrant to hear

Guns get bigger guns; words, heeded

The only thing that sends a tyrant fear

Words are the velvet touch

When awed silence shatters composition

A touch that lifts from the heart as much

And no option but words to resolve disposition

Does it seem like words end?

Somehow it feels like it does

I’ll leave words here for a friend

Remember me when what is was

Clear the canvas and prepare for rain. There outside the windshield stand the clouds ready to pour their heart out. As the car moves, the drops start to increase in slanted fashion. It seems more like dew. Feeling protected inside the car the wipers start to do their job and push away the downward tears. As each wiper pushes the drops and a new vision appears, the crystals appear faster making it impossible for the wiper to catch up. The wipers speed is increased but buckets reign on the windshield and the wipers chase the falling rain as much as the rain chase them.

The sound surrounds the car as the gush of rain pushed on each side of the car rendering the experience like a science fiction movie, not knowing exactly what the outcome will be and whether it will be better or worse. The highway looks like it is being washed over and over again, as if it gains and erases color instantly. Then the tapping on the car’s top sometimes feels like fingers of a giant coming around knocking or light footsteps of a toddler taking first steps.

As the car slides by people into the city streets, sights of people come who run from one side in the street to another side, umbrella up in arms. There seems to be a gracious butterfly movement as they battle the elements, letting themselves have the upper hand to reach their destination. As the torrents increase, the water chases itself in hordes to the drains, as if an AI painted this picture as an amusement park ride in a museum for Gothic temperament.

The car reaches the destination, and then whatever was in the trunk was reached for, soaking wet as they were. So? Blame it on the rain. Everyone grabs their stuff and rush to the place they’re staying in, where rain grandeur can appear behind a solid window. They run unprotected and the rain hits them anyway it can, and they slide arms and elbows pushing away the drops.

In the elevator, they look at their shoes, now with the color of rain, and smile as they try to figure how to get in without causing a mess. Once they got past that, they got their affairs in order. It seemed like rain is now apologizing for what it had done and slowing it down a bit. The sound goes down to a whisper, and it seemed like rain is making amends with the world.

A few hours later, it withdrew the apology and sent torrents tearing through the evening sky. It engulfed every region within the sight with the masterful ability to hold back sun, struggling to make it back to full view. It sound of increased rain was like a cry of war that would never stop. The window withstood the attack and the ducts appeared slanting, announcing the beginning of a new onslaught. The more it ended, the more it started.

Then through the glass window, the waves kept coming, as if they were giant hand fist after another, and everything within sight, people and things, seemed like chess pieces being moved around by a pro, but with speed of a seasoned video game player. Rain was falling down but it seemed to facing forward, as more and more of it just kept sweeping in several directions including the apartment’s window.

Then rain prepared to move to another place and visit other people. It left where it was leaving people with memories as they pondered why they loved and feared it so much. How it was a welcome change and a dreaded one it all once. How it was the source of life and the initiation of inconvenience. More rain, more gain? Or more rain, less pain?

Well, it’s a hard climb

But well worth the wait

Everything looks better from a view

Ain’t it grand to be great?

And have everyone stare

And wonder ’what’s going on?”

Yesterday I was nowhere

Now everything’s vanished; time itself’s gone

I try to have a faint memory

When days and dark were twins

What was the reason for my misery

And what was it that made starless nights win?

And it seems that all have gone back

To wearing their snake-like smile

Something that I’ve missed before black

Disappeared and sprayed day silver style

Now I spear-head the places not trodden

And I come at them pocketful blazing

And now I make promises all of sudden

And keep them. Who knew waiting was so brazen?

They say that money give confidence.

I wonder if that’s true

I wasn’t rich but I had a sense

Of who I am and I knew

Now I wonder who I am

Feel hung from a chandelier

Two steps up, and two just slam

And I wonder if I was ever here.

It’s a spiral down

That’s for sure

Common news: You’ve lost that crown

A curse with no cure

Oh, to see the world

From this side up

And how quick the world curls

When you’re no longer on the ride up

The taste of what it was

Remains but the banquet’s gone

Time to do what you suppose

But stay prisoner in the bygone

And new knowledge gained

About friends who loved the tapestry

But somehow became

The colour of the upholstery

They tell you they’re sorry

A voice you hear without a face

They tell you how much they worry

And how soon they’ll be around the place

You wait and what you see is the hollow

You were what filled it whole

Once rich in a dark tunnel they follow

Now poor, they steal what’s left of your soul

Because money is on the coat stand hanger

Waiting to be taken at the drop of a hat

Coat hanger all barren; questions hung with no answer

You had it then you don’t and that’s that.