The Everlasting Night

So soon now I lay me down to sleep forever

Never again to wake up together

An eternal night is how it will seem

But in all that time, not a single dream

Suns grow cold and beliefs forsaken

And through it all, I will not awaken

Years in billions pass by uncounted

With all my senses fully blunted

Wont be resting on some fairy cloud

Aren’t any noises that are too loud

Never gonna be either hot or cold

No more worries about getting old

There’s no alarms that I could hear

Not one old fear can reappear

Memories no longer get me upset

For now there’s nothing to forget

No news can bring me any grief

I rest so secure with no beliefs

Wont wake up when you roll over

Got no problem staying clean and sober

Can’t decide to trade rhyme for reason

Not concerned with form or function

Wont be scared of background silence

Don’t feel one pang of nagging conscience

All my thoughts so long since faded

Effects of my actions all fully dissipated

A few molecules of me swirl in the dust

Though I, too, swore ‘In God We Trust’

No more trying to save time

No career ladder left to climb

Don’t remember when I fell asleep

Wont wake up with the creeps

Now I’m bound to miss eternity

But there’s nothing more can ever bother me

Delivered from each and all my cares

Never to awaken, and no more nightmares

Sore Afraid To Leave Alone

        Mark 9:6 Peter knew not what to say: for they were sore afraid.

After I realized, as I sat in the dark, late at night, very much alone, I was drained to emptiness

I saw myself as I disappeared into that black hole of the void and, lo, I was indeed sore afraid

There was nothing to be done for me and no one would go with me for certainly: I had no destination

I was alone with my memories which were about to simply evaporate, with my tiny and silent passing

I finally saw the cold, emotionless certainty behind the noisy, content-free veil of our everyday life

And, no, not one of our currently-vogue One-true-saviors could grant me even the slightest comfort

This nano-bubble of consciousness would soon be swallowed by the black torrent of the universe

So though I could not face it, now I realized there was no direction to which I could even turn away

Somewhere far above I saw a brief, tiny spark and somehow knew it was me, as I streaked briefly

Anger was futile, there was no one to bargain with and only a deep resigned sadness remained

That infinite emptiness surrounded me, compressing my great fear of itself hard within me

I considered the dark abyss and briefly realized my unavoidable, everlasting, inorganic identity

I was as filled with certainty as any of my brothers who communed privately with his personal savior

My faith as unassailable as any illiterate Whateverstani who has memorized the Koran in arabic

I could never be disappointed as I expected an absolute nothingness that I would never even know

I saw that the eternal and everlasting had neither voice nor witnesses, or any motives or passion

Closing my eyes and ears did not help for that only clarified the black source of my great anxiety

I saw that I would only know that very first small step into an oblivion outside of measured time

I chuckled over my so-called legacy whose utter dissolution was just as assured as my own body’s

I knew this loneliness would soon evaporate into unbounded emptiness - and I grew sore afraid

My sustaining illusion of forever shattered in a thousand weightless pieces that quickly blew away

I frightened off a loathsome so-called man of god coming to try and sell me during my weakness

My attitude did not suit the family so they ascribed it to my condition and thereby could ignore it

But I remained secured to my dark vision though it left me totally empty and terrifyingly alone

Always Together, Never Again

We always said we would always be together

          Never dreamed of being one without the other

Always be together, at least in these short lives

          No one can say how we first met or why

Those long hours we spent wrapped in each other

          Always waking up with you so warm by my side

I can imagine my own death and some endless stillness

          But I can never imagine being without you

I see our skeletons intertwined on a quiet, hidden hilltop

          Every year we both bleach away just a little more

Always together and slowly fading away as one

          So where now is that love which never ended?

We were made for each other, as we always said

          And when each is finished is that purpose simply quenched?

The joy that you give me that helps light this world

          Without any living memories, tell me where is it found?

The peace and security we create for each other

          Tell me how will it be when we both are gone?

Always together through death into an unimaginable future

          Clinging to each other as we bob towards the unavoidable abyss

Yet we choose to live our lives in love and uncertainty, but not in fear

          The irrational choice of the rational facing this vast unknown

There is no armor but our love, in this long and hopeless struggle

          Our only hope springs from the light we radiate from within

And as we slip away and our hands grow cool though we are touching still

          We can no longer plan for the comfort of each other

Always together, but where were you those first 14 billion years?

          And I fear that you will leave me once again for an even longer time

Finally, Really Out Of Time

When you realize that you may be almost out of time

          Things swim into focus that you know now you never really noticed

The preciousness of the dullest moments you once ignored

          Become quite apparent as you are led off to be rewarded

A series of  last times and silent goodbyes lead to new conclusions

          And things as they are molt into merest memories for you

And though voices call out as you are peeled away

          The path you must take only leads you further and further astray

Then there are those few brief moments so inexplicable and sweet

          And you try to pause within them but they vanish like the dew

And if one finally realizes the very preciousness of the ordinary

          The busy world goes on around, quite unfairly, without a second thought

When at last perched on the brink of that chasm our thoughts can never fill

          Slowly grows an awareness of that awaiting unknown, so dark and so very still

Colors seem somehow brighter, familiar voices ring much more dear

          Though they don’t yet see it as clearly, their time is also very near

There is no more daily rush to nowhere then back again every night

          And now there is this fearful separation from the herd that you must fight

The burden of increasing uselessness grows heavy and confounding

          Food and drink can be tasteless with no real life to surround them

Memories boil up from places far away and all those times that did not last

          It becomes easy to imagine a hidden goodness in the distant past

Opportunities squandered and chances not taken return to haunt

          things you took for granted all those years re-appear just to taunt

Some come to sell you jesus, some come to relieve you of your assets

          The drugs remove your fight but still you lie awake in the night

Chance events from childhood on, strive to weave a full quilt of meaning

          Feverishly your mind keeps seeking some pattern before your leaving

The little ones are brought by to stand in wide-eyed apprehension

          friends and cousins may briefly pause and ask themselves a question

Some perish in a fiery instant, some linger painfully and grow quite bitter

          But many long-held but false assumptions will never even be reconsidered

Some may find great peace in knowing faith alone will see them through

          Others continue to ignore those who pimp religion’s pretty whore

All our lives we comfort in the fact that we always have tomorrow

So it’s quite hard to accept there is no more time to be borrowed

Can I draw from long hours spent praying or squandered in front of TV

          Do I await a re-uniting with those loved ones who left in front of me

Some make wondrous plans for a future others see shrouded in uncertainty

          Faith-based reservations can be made but arrival comes without a guarantee

We can still speak of someday but there are many things that won’t get done

          We can try to forget and to ignore but it will never be again like it was before

It was never supposed to come to this, not for me, in any case

          Dying was like being old, possible only for some other race

My grandma said she would never leave me, but long ago she went away

          I still did not grasp it all, even when mom and dad could not stay

And now as I lay here, so stiff and very still, I see others who have different plans

          To them it is very obvious I cannot escape, but that they most surely will

Nothing Can Do All Of This

        Everything in the universe comes out of Nothing – Tao Te Ching     
          nothing can prepare you for the afterlife among the stars

nothing can make you understand the meaning of a billion years

nothing can change the speed with which you return to cosmic dust

          nothing can teach you more than you knew when you were born

          nothing can only calm you if you ignore nothing at all

nothing can stop the decay that is your sacred birthright

nothing can defeat you even though there will never be a battle

          nothing can persuade you more completely than nothing at all

          nothing can hide you if there is nothing left of you to see

nothing can protect you since you remain here quite willfully

nothing can be part of you before well you learn to think

          nothing can hurt you if you hold on to it too tightly

          nothing can be forgotten until it is finally time to go

nothing easily assumes the place of everything you know

nothing can disappoint you when you still have expectations

          nothing can satisfy you given enough time and distance

          nothing can convince you that you have had too much

nothing can destroy you before you understand

nothing can identify you from the other faces in the crowd

          nothing can hypnotize you if you look it in the eyes

          nothing can delay you when you are in a hurry

nothing can be left alone if you really think about it

nothing can feel the same once you have it realized

          nothing can spoil the dreams of even the evangelical

          nothing can escape even the keenest of vision

nothing can evade the collective wisdom of the tribe

nothing can ignore the strength of our beliefs

          nothing can help you in your lonely vision quest

          nothing can relieve all of this earthly suffering

nothing can be counted on to be there in the end

nothing can reveal that for which we seek

          nothing can remove the sin they say emerged with birth

          nothing can cleanse us after all the sins of our lives

nothing can console us once we have lost it all

nothing can please those which nothing satisfies

          nothing can change our lives if we simply recognize it

Not Going To Make It

there are times when I realize that I’m actually not going to make it

          in the afternoon when it is quiet, save for the ticking of a clock

then it’s twenty years ago or twenty years from now, but it is all the same

          and I’ll be gone for a long time, quite soon, in the larger scheme of things

the sun is shining across the mountains and on down into the room

          and things just pause a moment as I work upon my knees

I know for sure just then that I am not really going to make it

          and although I might shed a tear, it’s not for the fear, but for its beauty

in those unexpected times when we pause within a short reflection

          we sometimes catch a glimpse of, as far as we can see

then I saw myself as if it were from a different point in time

          I saw again the boy, this man thought was gone so long ago, elated

and in that same moment the sunset gently faded

          as the man now weak and old tried to remember from where he came

then I knew with certainty that I was not going to make it

          but still, time had passed me by quite slowly and left a quiet comfort

while the measured clock ticks guide the afternoon sun across the room

          I have nothing left to say, save a long and drawn out sigh

though there are many times that this illusion still vibrates complete

          far stronger are the moments when the real light shows me the way

in between the ordinary and the things which change our lives

          flows a deeper river that we must ford from time to time

as we stretch our legs to start upon another journey

          the shadow of the hand of time momentarily sweeps across us

so what time have we really saved even as we count it and where is it even now

          since in a stream of disjoint instants, we see that we cannot make it

there are those brief and lucid moments when I realize who I am

          a small boy frightened by not remembering never being of this world

slowly do the dust motes float through the slanting sun

          they have always held a place for me in their silent dance 

in between my feeble wheezings there is a parting of the clouds

          and far off in the distance I see clearly that I could never make it

in the quiet stillness that moves in to soothingly surround us

          after all the mundane chatter dies away, then it becomes so clear

in the million years before I came here and in the first million next to come

          I see that even those times are lost in the billions piled up on either side

as I realize that the sun never really pauses in my little room

          so I note with some sadness that there is also nothing I can stop and hold

As You Left

David Meyer, October 1, 2004

As you left

          I only knew for sure that I, too, would go

As you passed

          I asked in silence why not me

As sure as you were gone

          I was sure I would not stay

As you grew cold

          I watched myself grow very still

As you faded off in time

          I observed as I returned to dust

As you slipped away

          I found it made no real sense

As you parted company

          I dwelt upon my own farewells

As you moved on

          I caught a glimpse of all our pathways merging

As you disappeared

          I could see my own outline growing fainter

As you turned away

          I witnessed that there is nowhere left to turn

As you left us

          I felt the guilt of the living

As you sailed off

          I thought of myself sinking

As you grew so still

          I did not want to move

As you went off all alone

          I saw me leaving by myself as well