When Does it End

People, places, professions, and pets

Families' faces, wrongful regrets

Distractions, I think, and think nothing more

Exceptions to that which there is something for

We are our own captors caught in our nets

Living for loving or loving to live

Seeking the whole but the soul is a sieve

Extractions, I think, suggesting a core

Deceptions, and that ever-yearning for more

Free from these factors, what have we to give?

Strip them away--the whats which we love

Shed them or stow them--the whos we think of

Neighbors and labors all peeled away

Sailors of ships, weigh your anchors this day

Gone, gone forever--gone below, gone above

I feel you, feel them, feel nothing but pride

A fool's fleeting memories--memories died

Sabers within pierce what's left of a heart

Nailers in crypts enshrine every last part

Of a life pure and perfect--now nothing inside

And this hollow heart now has nothing to hide

Cast them away as a shimmering stone

Their funny little feet, her intrepid tone

The unwritten stanza, the unwanted strife

To teach ungrown children and unbeheld wife

How to love living life in a life all alone

Pictures prior to twenty-sixteen, March four

Emptiness knots up and rots in the core

Death's anniversary, penitence begs

The people and places, the dives and the dregs

Distractions, I think, and think nothing more

There is no point, in this pit, I opined

What is there left when we're left behind?

But in these dark places with people's bleak faces

On occasion will come solemn moments and graces

It occurred to me--weigh this anchor anchored in my mind

The strings of thought and things of stress

Whether purposeful or purposeless

All we do, all for whom, everything that we think,

And every sin we commit, have in common a link

They're made meaningful or stayed--meaningless

A dangerous thought had entered my mind

And a stranger one caught just before I could find

Any reason to see myself free from these kegs

Up off of my stool, away from the dregs

Sorted, though sordid, and onto my legs

Worrisome words, though cruelly kind

That this life was not meant to be lived in this way

A pall that it all could be ended this day

No more fractions, distractions, or the feeling that this...

That the soul is kept strained if sustained in false bliss

So it keeps coming back-- through endearing decay

Too hard to handle, too heavy to lift

To conceive that to leave is considered a gift

Absolving the world of incessant contention

The matter of making untimely ascension

To degrade the esprit and to dock those adrift

Whatever these worrisome words underscore

Wherever the winds therein blow heretofore

A vow must be made: Every move that I make

Every choice I should choose, every action I take

Must be meaningful, purposeful, thoughtful, and more--

Suspending, and perhaps upending, this never ending March four