Death

Life's one true, incontrovertible fact.
No one alludes its ubiquitous grasp.
Display your medals, trophies, and ribbons,
they do not alter reality.
Gather more if you wish.
I am content to watch,
having acknowledged life's truth.
For life's truth lies in death.
Enough of your happy endings, 
there is but one true end.
Life's truth, like many facts, causes
pain, disappointment, denial . . .
Meet it openly.
Do not disguise truth in happy endings.
Have your trophies, medals, and ribbons,
but death takes first prize above all else.

                       
 Dear Autumn

You change so freely, effortlessly
Shed your skin after turning it into magnificent shades
Warmth and coldness visit you, even occassional snow, 
But not like winter.
Green changes to your magnificent shades, then . . . nothing.
A barren world, decaying yet with its own beauty
In with the rain and the green again, but 
Your shades are never long off,
Your skin grows ever weak
I observe your effortless change, and grow envious.
I witness your shedding, even your gradual passing to whiteness,
But I do not change.
Still I ponder on what might have been,
I cannot shed what plagues me, suffocates me.
Your effortless change mocks me, disturbs me, drives me to insanity,
Yet gives me hope.          
Change is ever near, even if not within.
Take me with you next time,
Lead me to your winter hideaway.

                       
 Journey to the Sun

I sit here on the dark side of the moon.
Barreness, craters surround me.
It gets quite cold here, all alone, no one to warm me.
I sit here - cut off from Mother Earth,
Not even the privelege of seeing her waxing and waning crescents.
Yet I remember Mother Earth quite clearly -
All her fruitfullness and splendor.
The seasons do not change here, 
The sunlight does not glitter on the treetops.
Barreness, craters - nothing more.
I see the satellites orbit me, 
But men do not dare visit where I reside.
I wonder if I show up on the radar scans - probably not -
I'm long forgotten by now.
Years ago it was when I left Mother Earth, my wife, my kids.
I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again,
So beautiful was my doom.
Her wild eyes, cloven foot, scarred forehead.
I should have known - then again, perhaps I did.
The strength of ten thousand men could not have resisted her beauty,
She called me, I answered, spent the night.
I woke up, and I sat here, ever approaching the sun's flames,
riding on her chariot.
My days grow short, the orbit cannot hold us forever,
For the chariot grows full.
I realize my faults, but it is too late, repentance will do no good.
I am one of the outcast Mother Earth ridicules.
I still sit on the dark side of the moon,
Barreness, craters quickly filling around me.
I am no longer isolated, but worse, my image abounds.
The chariot breaks away.
Perhaps I can get a glimpse of Mother Earth on my flight to the sun.

                       
 Fortune's Wheel

Insecurity rules me,
can't say what I feel. 
Depression runs deep, 
the wrath of Fortune's wheel. 
Perhaps I'll end it, 
make it a done deal. 
This thought scares me, 
to be the Devil's meal. 
I search for sleep, 
fall in with zeal. 
I fall too far, 
moisten my own seal. 
I worried too much, 
caught on Satan's reel. 
He pulled me in, 
froze Fortune's wheel.

                     
   Rolling Hills

Rolling hills stretch before me, pull my eyes to the horizon. 
Verdant pastures and tiny specks which farm and love the hills. 
But speak to me hills! Share your knowledge! 
Tell me of man's intrinsic nature, his fatal error. 
Speak of the rivers of red raging beneath you - 
Twisting, turning, falling . . . 
Yes, falling, spilling into eternity, layer to layer, 
Disturbing those rotting bones and wasted minds. 
Trapped in time but continuing on, the crimson journeys. 
Speak to me hills! Speak to us! 
Exhort us not to flood the river! 
You remain silent . . . Greedy, obdurate hills!
 

All poems: Copyright: Douglas Ryan Pulse 1997

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