Death Decks Out (1999)

by Rick Young | Dec 8, 2017 | Poem

Death decks out in painful forms,
staggered hours and waiting lines,
fighting foul earth winds and storms,
searching for more grand designs.

Man is fruitless, funny, hollow,
trapped inside a shell of time.
Leaders fall and nations follow.
Death alone can solve the rhyme.

Tick on, clock with broken hands.
Comfort ages. Sorrow stands.
Hope eternal, spring anew,
as we bid our time adieu.

Push a button for a vision.
Drop a coin into a slot.
Man approaches his decision.
Time is slow but death is not.

Dig ye deep and dig ye plenty.
No one knows his length of stay.
Some bow out at ten or twenty.
Others crawl toward judgement day.

Turntable Earth

by Rick Young | Dec 8, 2017 | Poem

A pit full of waxed nostalgia
awaited the takers of sound,
a groove in the earth like a natural birth,
all the needles gone deep underground.
When a feathery wisp like a dancer
sifted up from the earth to the sky,
a spattering rain, a heartbeat in pain,
etched a music that made the world cry.
And the slow dance of wind that soon followed
brought on night which swept feeling away.
When the curtain of dawn opened up its bright yawn,
there arose the song of a new day.