My Old Foe, Death

Death is a cagey bastard. It rarely comes right at you and if it does, it does so at lightning speed. It has a way of showing disinterest until it creeps from the shadows and coddles you into it’s clutches. I choose to search it out, keeping my enemy close, the better to keep an eye on it. It has a need to be in control and that is the battle I choose.




I walk through fields of amber and grey
boot heavy and heart full

all jangle and beat
in search of one who feigns
and waves along
with nonchalance

a foe I wish to draw near.

my life falls heavy
upon my chest
in anchored breath
of heated sorrow
and wasted want

He
bare and Poseidon-like,
a back of brass and iron.
banded arms in lock formation
jeweled in blood and blight
as emerald and ruby
these eyes of hardened deceit.

echo this,
echo I
hollow made thus
erringly so
you of yesteryear and forever.

but yet, I call
approach
challenge
yea,
even demand
to one who flicks
the ash of man

across the chessboard

of who dare?

I dare

I search you
yes,
in hunt of red October
and dip my fingers
to the depth
of your despair
in beleaguered plea
of selfish surrender.

I spy not
the whiskers of your age
nor the grain
of your youth
but the stench of your choice
I discern
in these fields
of inglorious restitution

and my eyes glint
as my tongue clears the scabbard
of notched forlorn

but you whisper goodbye
and trace
to the whisper of your
disappearance
the magic

in the chicanery

of your choosing

and once more, you have greased my grasp
with your laughter.

sheath full

of dull worn edge

boot heavy

with rusted jangle
and heart weary

yet alert,

watching

narrow eyed

to the shadows

that chase

along the edge
I plod on

knowing

when cease I to hunt you
your cutlass shall claim my blood
in chains

of sullen embrace.

~rick