Called Away

If you are called away
I will mark the day
All the days to follow
Will be extended from that one

If I am told to stay
I will mark the day
And a life so hollow
Will be appended to that one

If I have faith to pray
I will mark the day
When all those that sorrow
Will be transcended by that one

Days of Plenty Passed

The tube was full - I squeezed without care
Some on the brush
Some down the sink
Some on my chin - look there
Even a little in my hair
What did I care?
I opened the box and flung it away
That was on 'new toothpaste day'
I forgot the yesterdays
Rolling the tube so tight
Squeezing with all my might
Yet not even a smear
So I brushed my teeth with water
Spitting it out fresh and clear
Cursing the profligate ways
Of my 'new toothpaste days'

Beneath the Ice

Rising and falling
The grey ghost of fire fled south
Casting no shadow unsure of itself
Seen diffuse through liquid made crystal
Seen by still eyes without flicker in torpor
Fins that don't quiver and bright scales of copper
Rest in a stratum of chillier water
Slow beats the heart quick passes the season
Beneath the ice in a frozen nirvana
Awaiting the fire of the sun

Snowy Cedar

Snowy cedar in your winter coat
Shake your head and make it snow
In the shadow of your boughs
Make it snow down here below
Snow falls and a peeping green
On your waving arms is seen
In my bright imagining
It is the smallest spark of spring

Winter AM

The watery sun warming none
Heaven's empty hearth
Frosty glitter on blades of grass
I saw you totter down the path
Train-puffs of breath in the air as you pass
You, a ball of shiver
And the puddles like pieces of glass

Flutter

Leaf falling upwards
Challenging the sky
Other leaves must fall and die
Russet butterfly

Ouroborus

The serpent chanced upon a worm
Tasted it and found it firm
Swallowed it - or so he thought
Swallowed it although it fought

See the auto-cannibal
With a zeal satanical
Devoid of rationality
Seeking immortality

As upon himself he fed
His body was digested
'Till none was left save his head
Then at last he rested

A giant fossil skull was found
Without a body in the ground
No-one knew what would have filled it
None could say what could have killed it

Broken Umbrella

Fingers to the sky - bony fingers without gloves on
Once held a parasol - a shimmering marquee
A cold wind blew - then the rain fell through
And like mascara smudges beneath weeping eyes
Heaps of soggy leaves now lie under rainy skies

Perceptions of Time & Mortality #1 - Taxonomy of Eternity

When time began galaxies span
Oceans were drawn to the shore
The will of the moon decreed that the waves
Advance and retreat evermore

Called forth to swim in the river of time
Humanity fighting to live
Each being merely the latest in line
Receiving what ancestors give

All of them soon demonstrably gone
Absented from physical strife
'Dead' - denoting the end of a song
Describing an absence of life

If 'darkness' describes the absence of light
And 'death' is to life likewise
Then he who has lived must wink out of sight
And go to no-where when he dies

All of we humans destined to die
Flawed anti-entropic machines
Transmitting new errors to new nuclei
Our data bleeding from genes

Should in the future all come to naught
And phenomena find itself stilled
Then shall nothing have ended the world
And time by death have been killed

If ever and never together have sprung
And never forever may see
Then nothing may something one day become
And something may still nothing be

And one day the frozen corpse of the sun
Must rot in a dead galaxy
And never again will the universe deign
To accommodate humanity

But the universe is - not just a room
Complete with a door and its locks
It was woven upon the loom
Of the one outside of the box

Time and tide and you and I
Exist at his decree
He does not rest - he does not die
For he is aeternity

Know that the one who stoked up the sun
And lit the bright stars that burn
Will not forget each faithful one
Whose heart does love him in return

When his time comes to recreate
Then death, where is your gain
For our Creator in his great love
Shall bid us to live once again

Migration

The swallows have flown to the moon
On such a grey afternoon
It seems that the sparrow, the blackbird and dove
And all that own wings have been taken above
And without this realm of chill air
Are joining the swallows up there

Perceptions of Time and Mortality

This post forms an introduction to a verse project that will be undertaken piecemeal over the next few months.  The objective is to explore perceptions of time and mortality by means of a series of eleven poems.  I have determined an initial structure to the work by means of pre-selecting titles and general schema for the poems themselves.  The actual structure of each poem, its colouring and form, will depend on the influences of the moment when pen is put to paper.

The poems will all bear the label PTM to enable quick reference and will be posted when each is complete - not necessarily in the order of their numbering.  The numbering however will dictate the order of reading once the project has been completed.

1. The Taxonomy of Eternity - Definitions of 'time', 'death' & 'eternity'.
2. The Ephemeropter - The universe of the Mayfly
3. The Eternal Moment - Animal consciousness
4. Postpartum - Perceptions of the new-born
5. Equipoise - Man in his prime
6. In Extremis - Trauma-induced time-dilation
7. Altered States - Psychedelia
8. Janus First and Last - Geriatric repetition of infantile time-dilation
9. Transmission - The reproductive imperative
10. Deity - Outside the continuum
11. Temporialis - Conclusion

I hope that this introduction will whet the appetite for what is to come...

Best Regards,

Theodore.