Category : Poems

Sub Category : N/A

Steel bars cast stark shadows across the floor.
I’m watching them move with each breath I take.
Fear marches over to the painted door-
Lured by the magnitude of my mistakes.

A lunch cart with squeaky wheels approaches,
Pushed by a sour old man who won’t speak.
With red furtive eyes he always watches,
For the mark of prey or sign of the weak.

And so I turn from him, facing the wall.
Shadows continue moving as I breathe.
Then piece by piece I shut down from it all.
With a rough mocking hack, the old man leaves.

I had never seized life for what it was.
The day I once kissed a girls nipple tip,
How we both giggled – she because of love,
Me, because only part of my lip fit.

And in the woods the day when we heard a sound-
I’d been swatting at insects with a stick.
How she cried over a bird on the ground.
And I, moved, as she bent down over it.

The birds feathers seemed frozen in time.
Its small eye sockets burnt empty and black.
A branch fallen over the power line…
I shuddered in my cell thinking of that.

How truly good are the simple delights.
Only now, when they are gone, do I understand,
All I have taken for granted in life-
Soft beds, stars at night, a comforting hand.

Murmurs began to echo down the hall.
A letter sliding under my door.
The words spoke of death, my end to it all.
I looked down — without seeing anymore.

The enevolope fell from numb fingertips.
Owing no further purpose but to land,
Edge on with an unremarkable click,
And then tip over face down by my hand.