Sea-Wrack

Erebos

no i don’t feel like accosting the tide
nor do i palpably access in words
how i feel
   upset
   distress
no bliss to bless an unquiet mind
disposition at rest

   tides lap beaches and recede
to found more beaches
greater reaches of impermanency
and sea-wrack
of which i am one specimen
exhausted
from breasting the tide

  unfit . . .
no matter
let sit

©Laurie Ashton, mmvi
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We Pay a Price

W e pay a price for living
is the price too dear?
oh no! fear
is too near the bone
to place a value upon
“turn again Whittington!”

 time marches
in quick step
or slow
just so
the paean and the pang

 one arrow to the bow
many to the quiver
armed by providence
against what accident
may deliver

©Laurie Ashton, mmv
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Reminder from Hazlitt's "On the Fear of Death"

F rom fretful birth
  to fretful dearth of years
as yesterday damns tomorrow
  with its claims
infant joie de vivre
  burns dimmer
tempestuous youth in despite confronts
  middle old age
despised and later tolerated
  whereupon would to the contrary
delay in vanity
  nunc dimitis
and borrow access to what is denied
  future untold
rather than boldly stand up and deliver
  divorce from self
soon to be hence sped

©Laurie Ashton, mmvi
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