Mortality

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 7, 2018

Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Body, Conflict, Mind, Mortality, Night, Pain, Soul, Spirit, Time, War. 20 Comments

“The Dark Night” by Alison Lawlor

dark night of the soul

long running beyond

the marked moments

cadenced by beats of

the clock of the heart

no orbit of planets

will influence time

in the war between

bodily pain and cruel

tortures of mind

it can last for a lifetime

perpetual violence

wracking raw flesh

and blood places

the sunless and airless

pink spaces where

life should find

sweet affirmation

where body and soul

should reach blissful

concordium

nonetheless here is the

permanent battle engaged

pitting forces of spirit

against vicious powers of pain

every moonrise occasions

another new skirmish

enlarging the conflict

a blooding of more and more

cognitive acres

mortality never more vivid

than now in this deadly

dark night of the soul

Diatribe

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on May 14, 2018

Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Arrogance, Creation, Geology, Glaciers, Mortality, Patience, Rivers, Rocks, Stones, Water. 6 Comments

“Underwater River Rocks” by Dixie Distefano

brooding stones suffer anger

ignored by the sun beneath waters

too rushed to give them a care

left to wallow in mud of neglect

all their prettiness lost to admiring

eyes of the world noticed only by

coldblooded philistine fish with

their miniscule brain-hearts too

full of themselves nothing left

but to wait for the next glacier

era to scrape them from dull

deep obscurity raising them back

to their freed rightful place among

nature’s own objets de vertu

derisively flaunting their sheer

indestructible lifeless antiquity

mocking pathetic mortality

walking the crests of creation

From my book Bohemian Scents

Cancer

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on February 22, 2017

Posted in: POETRY. Tagged: Beauty, Cancer, Death, Disease, Dying, Health, Mortality, Pain, Relief, Remembrance, Suffering. 29 Comments

“Out of Agony Comes Beauty” by Carla Saunders

chain reactional

morbid explosions

genetically flawed

broken helical strands

carry cruel obscene

mutated seeds

predisposing a vile

self-destructive

dividing devouring

triggered by terrible

infinitesimal clocks

black and bleak

with grim biochem

sprockets and springs

body turns on itself

time and treatment

its weapons that

painfully hammer

a life to its knees

crush the spirit

maul dignity

sharp tragic irony

casting the specter

of death

in new light

of the hero

to bring sweet relief

and in the relief rises

beauty unblemished

regained of humanity

healthy and whole

and forever

remembered

Au Courant

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on September 2, 2016

Posted in: POETRY, Tanka. Tagged: Eternity, Mortality, Sky, Warning. 20 Comments

Image by riandesign.eu

fingers dipped in sky
found the brow of forever
furrowed with worry
how to warn humanity
that forever is mortal

Intimations of Mortality

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 29, 2016

Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Aging, Birth, Death, Maturity, Mortality, Perfection, Philosophy, Preexistence, Wordsworth. 15 Comments

“Birth and Death” by Lidija Ivanek

(An homage to Wordsworth)

the newborn child

arrives in an exhale of breath

preexistent with memory

tactile and voicelessly vivid

awareness firsthand of a heaven

conformed to a perfect new soul

an emergent philosopher

touched by the intimate truths

harshly thrust among perils

of this imperfect world

oh the irony watching as time

and the nature of life

deconstructs the perfection

contaminates purity

forcing the babe to grow up

and grow through mortal suffering

dimmed of the knowledge

so bright at the time of nativity

feeling all the magic slip away

until reaching a mental maturity

learning if lucky all over again

what had once been so real

but can now be no more than

experience had by the intellect

Diatribe

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on March 16, 2016

Posted in: Blank Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Arrogance, Creation, Geology, Glaciers, Mortality, Patience, Rivers, Stones, Water. 19 Comments

“Underwater Stones” by Lorenzo – from Pinterest

brooding stones suffer anger
ignored by the sun beneath waters
too rushed to give them a care
left to wallow in mud of neglect
all their prettiness lost to admiring
eyes of the world noticed only by
coldblooded philistine fish with
their miniscule brain-hearts too
full of themselves nothing left
but to wait for the next glacier
era to scrape them from dull
deep obscurity raising them back
to their freed rightful place among
nature’s own objets de vertu
derisively flaunting their sheer
indestructible lifeless antiquity
mocking pathetic mortality
walking the crests of creation

Climate Change

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on January 26, 2016

Posted in: Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Apocalypse, Burning, Climate Change, Fire, Heat, Mortality, Scripture. 24 Comments

“World on Fire”
Image by Martin Capek
From astronasty.blogspot.com

what good are wood bones
when the city’s on fire
and everyone’s pockets are
bulging with match heads
the end has been scripted
by gasoline quills on the skin
burning skies disappear into
hot roars of finitude clearing
out caverns of space-time
continuum room for the
gang of us one-way eternities
incense of smokerise
departing our ash heaps

Matter Over Mind

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on November 29, 2015

Posted in: Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Anatomy, Biology, Disease, Health, Illness, Mortality. 16 Comments

Illustration from Antique Anatomy Text
From pinterest.com

what do we know
of our unlit interiors
vital with viscera
organs comprising
our personal engines
of private biology
pumping and beating
secreting absorbing
digesting and dreaming
specialized structures
performing the various
work of existence

these canopic entities
own their own destinies
run to exhaustion
foreclose on their
functions unfazed by
the will of their host
setting off a grave
chain of events that
will threaten survival
more often than not
way too soon for
an unprepared soul