The Poet Spiel

a dying matter

cast my ashes
  on agitated water

where my enemy
  cannot surround them

where my best friend
  cannot long to wake them

Previously published in: Bathtub Gin; barely breathing; League of Laboring Poets; Poems for all; Breathing Back Words; Ascent Aspirations

no one dies –   

we all live beyond our time
today alive
tomorrow dead
and tomorrow is today

its dead come back
to face you
about yesterday
and all the dead
who never died

for no one ever dies
but lingers on
some more evident than others
some will haunt you
but those voices – 

the ones you think have come
to tell you what you wish to hear   
are only figments of your mind
for when the dead appear
they are not prisoners

of the earth
but of the truth
and what they have to offer
may surprise you:
that in time this issue of the now

and what we think is ours or mine
and the now we think we know
we must release to stillness
and still 
it is not still but restless

hence those flashes
of their presence
checking back
till they are certain
they are finished
with what they may have left behind

then as quickly as they come
they go
for the things of earth
including you
are trivia
in compare 

Previously published in: Soundings; Drama Garden; Barely Breathing; Abbey

 

There has been no influence under the politics of NEA and not a hint of the heavy hand of an MFA in the art and writing of personal conflict and social consciousness by The Poet Spiel aka Tom Taylor aka Thoss W Taylor. Frequently focused on the confinement of being human, this diverse artist/writer creates visual and verbal imagery which has been exhibited in more than 200 solo and group exhibitions, coast to coast and in Africa. His work has been licensed and published internationally. His most recent book is REVEALING SELF in Pictures and Words, available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/REVEALING-SELF-Pictures-Words-Taylor/dp/1979893691/