The First Words that He Spoke

And all He ever talks about

Is blood, death and the end of all our kind.

Free people, though we are

Our brains can’t discern want from need,

Anger from agony and most of all,

A cerebral acquiescence to pardon and gore.

The view from above, He says

Is of red on dewy grass; and black above

Spots of intense maritime trade.

(You dig deep to find

What you buried long, long ago)

But bleed your palms to see

That the said time and its devices

Aren’t wholly free of conscience.

Fail in the face of pain,

But try better a second time?

Unbearable as it is, for a last resort

You hope for death to relieve-

The feelings that tether you to this hellish life.

*

Changed, But Seemingly Same

Ten years after a farewell,
A decade of silence and whispers.
Not a friend too close;
Carried away by the clock-work life,
Where everything's a ritual.

It may have been years
Since I last saw the face.
We - two of a quartet,
The best minds in a lyrical asylum
And the perpetrators of chaos.
And thus I sighted him -
Wider and ears redder -
Changed, but seemingly same.

Feet from him, and I called -
A recognition? Maybe surprise.
Eyes wide and ears redder,
And then a crease of the temples.

Eyes searching for a name;
His face wasn't lying -
Recognition absent, but just that hint.
Or was I just hoping?

The same man, the very same,
In ticks of clocks,
In spinning of gears,
And in the passage of time,
Had a feeble mind.
'Twas the age of silence, in ignoration.

The head turned and
His feet took him away.
And I stood there, just there;
Looking up, seeing, not the sky
But the truth of time.

That it wasn't the same as then,
'Twasn't a twist of fate,
An everyday error: to forget.
That it had to happen then;
That it made me think he was
Changed, but seemingly same.