Poem #6-2013 Mortality

On waking this morning:
a hintergedanken
Something, slippery ... unspoken
Looming just out of consciousness

Drove to the nearest cemetery
Lay down in the grass atop John Siemens
Never heard of him before
He was mortal like me

Climbed up and sat on his headstone
My feet dangled
Heels bounced on the etched dates:
1945 - 2004

His entire life unfolded in that one-inch dash
Didn't even make sixty years
Wonder if I will
John said it was unlikely

Other dead spoke to me
Mothers and fathers
Gone angels spinning
Around my disbelief

Jumping down
I left two footprints
Dug into the grave
A defiant act not contained in John's dash

Bought an ice cream cone on the way home







                                      Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #97

Poem #5-2013 Forest Haiku

Symptom of nature
I walk through the piney woods
Through myself darkly












                                   Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #96

Poem #4-2013 Saying No to Death

Saying no to death is not enough

one must also say yes to life

else living becomes a

timid pursuit of breath

shallow triumph of mediocrity

joyless bite of the apple

listless step on someone else's journey

I am a cadaver, walking

among those who haven't

seen the darkness

who revel in the blinding light

darkening the darkness

for those who said

no to death

but forgot to say yes to life

                                         Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #95