DEATH ETERNAL

There is no Eternity, no Infinity

for us mortal 'souls' -

there is the void,

the swarming sea of particles

appearing, disappearing;

a quantum dance that gave

terrible sentience, consciousness

that flees in the face of

the reality it inhabits:

The cosmos, a film

on the surface of something greater

forever hidden

from the ape that came down

from the trees, who fashioned a stone

and struck blood with it;

the marrow devourer who

yearned the brights lights

above in the night, who

yearned life beyond life,

who tore away the veil

and saw his death eternal.

31.10.2018

THE THREE DEAD BOYS IN GAZA

Their eyes open,

their mouths open

in the surprise of death,

small bodies side by side

torn by shrapnel.

They went off

to have an adventure,

to show the defiance

of thirteen-year-old boys

against the guns

behind the barbed-wire

and the fence, the buzz

of drones in the sky.

In this world of oppression

there can be no adventures

against evil adversaries

like in the boys' books,

suspension, threat and victory

against all odds. In this world

there was a man or a woman in a uniform

who gave a command, there was

a drone, a missile

and an explosion. There was

 a tear on a cheek in darkness.

Soldiers firing at ambulance crews.

There was no return in the first light of dawn

with clapping of shoulders and laughter,

evil and terror of the night cast down.

There was the return on stretchers,

under white blankets, in darkness.

There was death,

eyes that looked but no longer saw,

mouths open that could no longer utter a scream

for all the pain of that moment

that brought death

from those who fly the drones

to kill young boys in the night.

30.10.2018

OCTOBER MIRACLE

Suddenly I realize, seeing

the bare branches through the living room window

against the blue sky, mind

wandering away from the voice

lecturing science on the laptop screen,

that I am, oddly, at peace

and even, happy. Trembling, I

handle the feeling and the moment

with care, lest it wither or

escape, but it stays,

this strange feeling no reason

gave birth to, water bursting

from dry ground on the desert.

It will not last, but for now

it stays, like a curious bird

roosting on one of those autumn branches,

a messenger from happier eons.

19.10.2018

THE GORGE OF THE BLACK RIVER

Beside the black river

the alders and aspens stand bare;

their leaves given

for the dark waters

to carry away from the autumn.

The firs rise dark green and black

on the sides of the gorge,

climbing towards the gray sky,

reaching the birches in yellow

standing on the side of the late autumn fields.

The old snake, the black river,

ten thousand years has run

since the glaciers gleaming white

towards the north and their death

on sides of fells crept.

Autumns have come and gone,

winters turned to spring,

and during them and summers bright

the black river its way deeper and deeper dug,

carved this gorge into eternity.

10.10.2018

THE JUDGEMENT OF THE GODS

I avoid the gods; let others

their favour seek,

I give them no libation,

no smoke from an altar of mine

shall rise to their abodes above.

Let them come to me,

being to a being,

I will judge them like Paris

his goddesses on the meadow did

and for the fate of Ixion,

kingly Sisyphus or the titan Prometheus

as my reward

all them guilty find and curse.

08.10.2018

KILLING GOD

We need to

put God down

like the

diseased, rabid

beast

it is.

Come here

God,

it only hurts

for a

a moment

in eternity.

06.10.2018

Soap bubbles

inside a cosmic soap bubble,

planet Earth and human lives.

See them drift away.

06.10.2018

red twilight

how many times

i saw this with you

going back

& now

only i

the fallen sun

bathing the road home

with heavenly blood

03.10.2018

EXTINCTION

In the death

of a one person

is the death

of the whole humanity.

The essence

in a fragment,

the fate of all

in one, the

fate of the species

in one breath stopping.

01.10.2018

ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES AZNAVOUR(1924-2018)

The lips don't move,

the heart doesn't beat,

the mind has swivelled

down the black hole of death.

Death has come

to the boy who sang

from the age of nine,

sang for eighty-five years.

Death has come and

the song has ended;

the last grain of sand

in the hourglass fell.

Only the echoes

remain, echoes of the

song and murmurs of a life,

slowly starting to fade...

01.10.2018