The Tragedy of Time

Perhaps it is the not knowing

a circumstance

a press release in the evening news,

a morning alert

we all have found ourselves

recognizing the vulnerable nature

of the human condition –

oh is it death,

or simply the prolonged life

medical intervention,

that would have not extended any truths

centuries ago,

we just died,

a sort of flu,

unabated and watched,

observed and grieved.


Today, we see it in slow motion

the trip to the hospital,

the car ride,

a sudden turn

a flash of lights,

the triggers of taking a step off the edge,

and yet

there’s no time remaining


afterward we know

only a memory.


There is that other real

tragedy of time,

those that wished for more

yet in their final moment

decidedly found Grace

where a soul

became such that entity

that begun a new journey

allowing the living

to pass through and step inside

a dream,

a fantasy

we cannot know

until some elegance


while we do eventually

come prepared.

If I Pretend, Will They Too

We want that,

we wish and pray,

like to believe in that

we all would like it this way,

mild confusion, yet,

what steps in the

middle of our sudden circumstance,

suggests we’ve lost our

ability to freely take chance

with what we believed up until today.


When I grew up I realized

I had slowly lost my way,

when all of my years of trying to find

the solution toward that which I pray,

I cannot get over how deep the ravine

of indecision, has continued to fall.

I want to believe,

truly like you, we all do, somewhere inside,

want to recognize our human frailty

might be …

To be vulnerable in our world is to indicate weakness.

when playing on the school grounds,

I didn’t want to play,

and rather than be left alone,

I wanted you to ask me,


to play.

I didn’t want to figure it out years later,

with some bookend that appeared to imagine

what I felt inside.

Such bullshit to believe we cannot allow ourselves

to need,

instead we are asked to always amend,

our weakness so they can recommend

that answer that everyone else seems

already well ahead of the game of …

slipping slowly

unravel the dreams

to expose the fear,

that piece I believe

I seldom show

yet you might argue

is always there,

unmasked in artificial

burial grounds of

gin, liquor and bloody mary,

further less protected by

acts of random ignorance.

There is a sea of disparity that awaits my soul,

and when I arrive,

will the laughter remain,

or perhaps,

will all my anxieties, my intuitions of doom,

will every ideal that I ever believe

suddenly vanish in the misty shorelines

of deceit and depravity,

that arena of justice,

that seems so apparently there,

just waiting,


playing for the right moment,

when silent in the afternoon sunshine,

I suddenly feel like everything,

my world, theirs, and all of ours

instantaneous gratification,

bears its unruly head,

to suggest …

we all pretend.