Torpedo

Birdless skies cloudy and grey

Until a single torpedo flits past

One lone sparrow darting above

Cutting through the heavens

Wings moving flutter fast

Suddenly pressed tight close

Shooting through the air bullet brave

Slicing through air smooth as water

Out of the twigs and leaves

Away from the feather padding

No more regurgitation

Goodbye feeding

Pushed and shoved

Prodded and snipped

Tough love and what has to be done

Hard as it is, it is inevitable

And the image in mind

Morphs externally

But captures the true soul,

The real life struggles and cycle

Of all life

Of not only the flocks of birds

Of not simply humanity

Of an often incomplete group

Animals branch out

Down lines of ancestral roots

Sprouting buds of floral décor

Growing fruit amongst the leafy green

Becoming diverse and unique

Aligned through a common point

Invisible to the naked eye

Solid to the mental scope

Pushing through each day, facing each blow

Looking towards the newer

Looking back to the familiar

Pushing out the nest, facing nothing but now

Door Without Key

Hearing news of surgical procedure coming

Fearing that cutting pain

Worried and fretful for that bloody opening

Wondering where those sharp knives have been

Questioning the steadiness of the hands performing

Calming down with trust

Believing in their training and experience

Knowing that it is all a must

Telling oneself that it’s for the best

Finally done with all that they’ve fussed

A whole surgery goes on in complexity

Patient knocked unconscious from anesthesia

And the heart is stopped momentarily

Dead in some thought

Alive only on medical hands and machinery

Post-operation

Wounds closed and cleaned

Awaken drowsy from the medication

Know nothing and remember nothing

Thinking back to a simple cut and stitch done

The surgery is merely captured in what they see

A miniscule scar left remnant

Mind acknowledges it as a new door without key

Never realizing the moment of robotic lifelessness

Finishing, not aware of the lack of guarantee

Life Mechanism

Hospitalized

Alone

Separate

In isolation

No visitors

No guests

Family, friends, who?

All too busy, all too far

When they come and you are bedridden

When they come and you are in comatose

When they come and you cannot move

You cannot talk, swallow, or move your eyes

Wanting only love and compassion

Wanting someone to care

Only then will limbo fade

And the chains and bonds break

Escaping at last into florescent lighting

Into more encasement within white walls

And insistent beeping of machinery

Of the constant flow of air through ventilators

Of nutrition and drugs flowing through veins

Broken into by needles and tubes

A living human science project

And near hopeless cause revitalized

Brought home at last

A home you missed for decades past

Finally with those that will look after you

As a newborn child once again

At the ends of the cycle

And attention returns

With people together through each daily second

Until the new beginning arises