Living Fossils

Millions of living fossils fill space

vegetating stagnating everywhere

Dark sunken eyes, shoulders drooping

like a shapeless rag doll,

Eating drinking walking going

towards nowhere.

Scrimpy minds frugal thoughts 

lives put into disordered slots

No big bang to shake them into

doubting there's sure something beyond

 sleeping dozing nondreaming

about  nothing.

Tempted once they tore at the web

cadge a promise and make it big

Wear the crown on the head

like the fecund others but dissipated

Now full of empty days empty thoughts 

stumble on.

Limbs drifting, steps faltering with

stoned minds  hazy dried up dreams

Fumbling, groping, falling

bumbling crawling descending

towards nowhere:
Marooned all.

Ebb and Flow

When night comes dropping low

Darkness weaves a blanket

round your soul,

 Unshed tears numb you

- an otherworldly lullaby

of voices you knew from eons ago

now dead but not really so.

                Strange shifting shapes

                 Nebulous, fluid, blobby

                Hushed wordless whispers

               Faint, thin, sloppy

on the bleached walls

And the vacant mind

Where only dying embers

now rub shoulders with

the spark long snuffed out

by the torment and wound

of wisdom that can 

lacerate and slash and cut

a jillion splinters and fiords

- an already mangled self.

                           Follow the footfalls?

                           Unlock the door?

                           Listen to the mumble?

                            Break the core?

Daybreak caresses the cheek

Hugs in a soft embrace

Whistles another song

Of battles lost and won

Of birdsong and sun

Of untaken roads to tread

Memories to forsake

Of homes to build

And voices to be stilled.