The Journey of Flesh

Over many millennia humans assumed Earth was home
With atoms gathered in the universe so kind and generous
A richly blue orb with patches of green, breathes, gives life
Some assumed it to be nature, so benevolent, others gods
Whatever it is our existence isn’t generous, if born broken
Some choose to make others pay for the cost they bring

I was the child given up and little better than thrown away
But that doesn’t mean that my life went fully unredeemed
Truly, as this flesh has cost more than most, I was untamed
With every movement I was reminded, existence is limited
Each breath is an exchange of exertion and air to survive
Each moment of my flesh and stimulation of brain lingers

Aware of my limits in humanity, by my form and mind
If lives were better constructed than mime or more so
I’m unaware how I’d even change that, but I do believe
In a world surrounds me, I’m lost, alone, can’t perceive
I hunger for a reward, want to make it my own, emptily
What have I done to make my existence have meaning

Here in the moment I’m blind to my flaws and my awe
My selfish inner voice asks, will I ever make contact
Asking myself and existence both, am I alone, an alien
Do differences make us unique or demand conformity
To find my voice and place, before I pass, from view
I look at where I’ve walked, as there are no footprints

There’s nothing that tells the world I exist but words
I speak and write, expressing my being, I’m not alone
I might be quiet, as pain of injuries leaves its wound
Still I know I’ve existed, like a weed, I’ve persisted
My life goes on, other voices are loud, finding being
Choosing a way, if silent but also living and seeing

And what you define as normal doesn’t define me
I am alive because my life was once allowed to be
By acts of love by others, by my mother, enough
Called from the kind of darkness to yet exist, alive
My words and life were confused, I didn’t thrive
But I came into being in the time stream by love
Time, Atoms, love, and Weeds

In Death's Lavish Hold

The world was afire, the populace would be lost
But the sole power that might save all of them
Was spent upon realms of the flesh and bones
Burnt remains as smoke covering the sky black
The generations sought pleasure without a cost
Built great altars to their flesh to every horizon
As they've planted a dead Moloch upon a throne
Dead outnumber the living, birthing plagues
Our fate has yet to be sealed, it is undecided
But this world will never see that time
It lingers there, in death's lavish hold
Waiting

“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.” E. E. Cummings 

Bleeding my ink

Dropped into a world of flesh, a spirit shook off the ink
My words were never fully understood, even as I'd tried
These are dreams of a mad mind, everything out of sync
Imagining I can never truly live, demanding my egocide
Trapped by a physical, material world, too hard to think
In ideas found inside, deeply hiding, for fears to decide
My life a catastrophe, coping skills pushed to the brink
I am lost, despite being in the same place where I died
In a silence, my life always too loud, I needed a quiet
I gave all my ink to earn the final silence in my life

No Longer a Thrall, I was a Warrior

Part 1

Named by parents as Hartwig, I can't remember them
I now was a thrall, slave of a forge for the tribe Norse
My tribe was slaughtered in raids, all dead save for me
I was found hiding, a 5 year old so scared I wet myself
They thought I was amusing, I thought they smelled
In their village, it was cold always, I barely survived
Needed to quickly learn working the forge, it was Hell
In the village they were warriors and traded all goods
Winters were cold, beyond cold, beyond feeling warm
I was told I'd lived 15 years and allowed me to decide
Remain a thrall slave, or become one of their village
I'd have to learn to bear a shield and a sword, if I did
I chose to fight, a forge burned when one drew close
I was given then a new name, Hrafen, I'd bear it well
Ready for battle after training, stopped at the Faroes*
We drank and ate our fill, took to our ships, intense
In our day we became the Saxon shore's nightmare
Returning to the village let me feel as if I belonged
Not a slave, adopted, the time remembered in song

* or the old Norse name: Færeyjar

Restoration

At last a human breathed air, it took many decades
Mars wasn't our species' first home but it'd work out
It was close enough to Earth, newly made fertile
Waters long, deep had carved scars deep upon Mars
And then colonists arrived, after drone terraformed
The decade of work, moss colonies were implanted
A Red planet was now oxygenated, becoming green
Believe: a world that could sustain oxygen required life
Sustaining native plants and dormant lakes and rivers
The change was in the end a rebirth, a new salvation
A home, one we had to work to bring into being

Our Puny Human Race

A time when humans were without awareness
In context of the era or perception of the past
All our actions silent, our life left no evidence
The footprint of our species were meaningless
Unless we kill the earth, by neglect or by war
Nuclear weapons will kill a planet, a warming
We live upon a timeless source of life, warning
This world should almost certainly survive us
Shame comes from the fact that of our hubris
And we're singularly motivated to destroy it

“It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps 
even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate 
society, but not in a world with no future where, all 
too soon, the very words "justice,""compassion,"
"society,"struggle,""evil,"would be unheard echoes 
on an empty air.” P.D. James

When Good Men Were Failed

During an era of a golden age, the state called
Those born to farming families, labor hardened
The state had called on them as recruit soldiers
Children of a plow had attachments to their land
They were loyal and they'd no reason to mistrust
Offers from the state mixed serving and a reward
The wars they'd then fought, thinned the number

In that service, the backbone of Rome weakened
After battles, the cost was fewer farmer soldiers
There'd now be less of labor hardened strength
Fewer could serve and vote, to work the land
Many lost their farms, by virtue of being gone
Then elite bought the lands that birthed men
Who were well able to carry out labors of war

Farms failed, but not the fields they were rich
While the lands were then worked by slaves
The farm born soldiers if not killed, still lost
This is the case of America, in wars for oil
The wars to support the false democracies
Soldiers once gave everything, but at home
Their farms failed, auctioned off, by elites

Cynical use of honorable humans endures
As banners differ the false hope goes on
The states let these honorable men die
In service of elite wealth and resources
They'll someday experience the harvest
No one will still remain to then serve 
For farmers a harvest was genuine

A cynical elite, wealthy and powerful
These are the true rulers of the state
A state who will call out with offers
Offer up those who serve on altars
With a harvest as manifest slaughter

Without Perception

I never could comprehend the master's plan
My hope flowed and ebbed, didn't understand
In dreams of the life of peace was never mine
My existence was a mistake of living, of time
A life I was called to live is beyond my hands
And I can only stare off into the stars, sublime
The world is magnificent, but I'm dirty, empty
The dreams of a insane mind can become true
So I will long look at that planet and dream
Until death and silence no longer tempt me

 

To find victory, to celebrate, to remember

To drink from the horn of a defeated beast is not mockery
It is a connection, a memory, its a cup to celebrate victory
Future humans won't know how it was to live in this time
Same to say for our ancestors of the past, we do not know
Judgment from the unwise who cannot understand is folly
The world lives now, we can't return to the past or future
Instead of feeling superior or inferior, understand the now
Its all you have, its all you can know with any certainty

IN A MOMENT, HE SURVIVED BUT OTHERS DIED

Rising from his position on the beach, he focused
Going from prepared to the warrior sent to attack
The FSSF preparation and training was grueling
But this moment would free up Anzio's beach
Elite skilled and trained soldier, unafraid, anxious
Killing others, firing down at one as he climbed
A collision about to happen, impact was relentless
The Nazis called them Black Devils, barely knew
How deeply different these men were from them
While he found and went over the wall, into fire
Shooting until he'd no more ammo, struck down
Then rolling from the tumult, would die if left
Four had come to pull him to safety, and died
Finally even stretcher teams came to save him
But didn't survive their effort to save his life
FSSF "Blacky" Strecker, managed to live
Living a life afterwards on borrowed time
And making every second worth living

IN A MOMENT, HE SURVIVED BUT OTHERS DIED
Alex Ness 2026© Dedicated

Into Void, Spat out of Blackholes

Watching each person, while shining in a spotlight
The darkness full and abject, my stain's permanent
Into the void despise all I've done, left undone
Blackholes spit me out, I'm remaining still rejected
My being is left now a broken vessel, gone

Aloft and Waiting

When the Son of God, Jesus had been crucified, his father watched
Had the Christ been uncertain, unwilling, or broken by the Romans
Acall for help from God's Angel legions and Archangel Michael
It'd have been 12 legions of angels, 72000 warriors
They hovered overlooking earth, ready, fully able to act
The world below was never outside the hand of its creator

In the quiet memories

To grieve, some people choose to retreat
And they lose contact as others move on
Others don't know the loss, or how it felt
With no hope upon the morning horizon
That life lost calls out, amidst the defeat
Death isn't something feared, no not now
There's no fear, only of being left behind
Again by an other like one once loved
There is only exhausted thoughts

Every Day Saints

These men fought for a people, as armed saints
Taking nothing in return, they'd meant only well
Defending the poor and meek, with arms and war
When the harvesters took lives and removing gold
All were turned back, fleeing from fields in defeat
Saints lived among those they'd helped after war
Of the tales they avoided what people would tell
How these armed men fought and left many scars
But in darkness the foe again rose, in winds cold
The saints had somehow renewed people and land
Giving of a future, the band of men fought well
Knowing the future is bright, by works of the hand
And they fought again, at last, to let the others live
As life has little else, but to love, and to forgive

Slava Ukraini

Trying to Find One Life

I've endured many lives and not one was worth the time and blood

My lives were all reduced to fear, reduced to living to pass the time

As Ovid said, I ask forgiveness not praise, for I'll be praised in full

Existence doesn't matter, my being does not beg for grace or rhyme

We're a bloom upon the wheat field, heavy and full, ready for a cull

It says nowhere we're meant to be happy, it says we should find joy

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other.
But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the
risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
                                                               Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Seeking the way ahead

Why are we worried about the end of our story

When the rules of how well we might achieve

Are hidden from view, leaving us in purgatory

Is there a reason to hope or a reason to believe

Is the path determined, rigged to prevent glory
Our path revealed in the tracks left behind

Politics by Blood 490 BC

Oh great Darius, we've known of your hunger, for Greek lands
But now your warriors bleed and they've their skulls crushed in
They followed your orders, men of the entire Persian Empire
 As they've now been fully stopped on the beaches of Marathon
You sought our land, desired to kill or to enslave the Greeks
War was the test, but you failed, you've numbers but no power
Aimed towards villages and Athens, your violence rushing in
What's left of a dream, are we called to be foes, I don't know
So flee, pray your ships launch, instead of on burning shores
We're Greek and elect leaders, not monarchs, fields go fallow
The runner Pheidippides, gasping out his final breath,
Left us his message in death, "Rejoice, for we win!"

SEEKING: An existence where Peace and Hope co-exist

I long to go to Elysian fields, I long to be at peace
If my flesh is broken, my heart's a prayer unspoken
My world seems alien, in grave emotion starvation
Hope's a miserable token, if in pain beyond release
My life journey over, false hope I'll refuse to chase
My desire isn't selfish, I pray as a means of trust
Life is neither empty nor unworthy, but it is pain
I've nothing left inside but hope, it is not enough
Love keeps me alive, but endure for a purpose?
To love is that purpose, it is enough, it is meant
In a place of life, too tired to fight, ready to pass
Here my friend, I'm at last ready, the die is cast

"Alea iacta est" Julius Caesar

God Killer

To kill a God and to slay beings greater than the Titans
Diomedes bore a spear, cutting through all of the godflesh
His way wasn't for any others, he was touched in his mind
Exiled from his homeland, he fought and left but few standing
Gods soon feared him, enemies and friends all fled before him

Let me Leave

This life has costs, has potential, facts and dreams
The being lost, essential hopes, with acts and need
Let the world be, attention strays, let me leave
For this world is not my world, I am ready
I am bleeding please just let me flee

The Steel and Fire in the Pacifist

Steel is muscle, point of view armor and weapon
Fire is the inspiration inside the one, the warrior
Fields are splattered in blood, after Armageddon 
Those dreaming of peace can become notorious
For being pacifist yet with a great ability to fight
Finding light in day, and a darkness in the night
Move and strike, and find themselves victorious
A pacifist found inspiration to act due to the foe
Then return to peace with the new knowledge 
Acting ethically, the esteem in others grows
Never push those morally opposed to fighting
To then fight, use their steel, feel their fire
To defend themselves, foolishly tested

In the Heart of a struggle

For some important and even factual reasons
One was united in Nationalism and control
The other had united workers into a force
They'd wallowed in war, killing in hubris
They'd believed they'd chosen their destiny
In the hateful event of ill remembered time
Humanity cried, pain unable to be measured 
The facts and knowledge now lost in crimes
In the two opponents, as equals in a contest
Catastrophe of violence, dead linger in fields
And here titans would remain frozen, in anger
Wrath poured out, lives cut down in a prime
Two opposite forces strike, refusing to fall
Bodies stiff, unable to move, battle winter
Nothing remains for the bodies left there
Only to hear screaming souls, violent tasks 
Innocents die, reapers call, Titans clashed

When two notorious or evil powers fight each other, it is common to hope they 
both destroy the other. The war did choose a winner, but it didn't destroy that 
power, it pressed reset upon their journey. Calling the battle on the Eastern front
the Great Patriotic War the Soviet Union made memory of purges and hunger 
feel like it was done for a higher cause. Obviously many  authors have had many 
different opinions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I live, I love, I know I have been alive

People often see existence as an accident, I've no doubt
My life has seen great mercies, favors, along with grace
As a child of rape, I was a burden, I could be cast out
Allowed to die due to abortion, and exist as a memory
Instead I was allowed, instead, to become life, a being
My adoptive parents gave me a life, one worth living
My DNA mother allowed life, with abortion nullified
Later I was to become a father, I'd then have a legacy
I saw life from a perspective that was cold and wrong
Life isn't about goal and victory, it is not a transaction
Experiencing love, giving life, my life has a meaning

A Confluence of Crimson and Bone

They laid there on a field of battle, confluence of bodies
Crimson red on all victims, the allegiance didn't matter
Each end of bayonet, both attacker and victim, a human
Reasons for the battle, being a cause of that catastrophe
Heroism or fear, courage or fleeing, the reasons scattered
In this war there are no winner, many losers, confusion
End allowing only decay, flesh in corruption, shattered
All ended life by violence, chance and circumstance

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor 
how justified, is not a crime.”   Ernest Hemingway

IN BIRTH BETRAYED

My existence was not an accident, despite the rape of a woman
Instead, I was allowed life, from the chance, she had saved me
Instead of life, I could've been sucked from the uterus, aborted
If I'd been called into being in the past, I'd be seen as inhuman 
Now a bastard child, given up in adoption, society betrayed me
Mistaking the child for acts against a mother, my truth distorted
Life goes on, regardless of consent, so create your own truth

Living Cells Fall Away

The hollow, the empty, the waiting mother of a missing daughter
Lives abandoned, the violence towards each other, and slaughter
The worlds lost were never out of view, but remain out of reach
Fleeing lives we had, all in decay and entropy, our city besieged
Never lasting, in now every city of dreamers can no longer sleep

"The entropy of a closed system never 
decreases. Every process must by law 
decay."         Author Anthony Doerr

Time is our Teacher

In moments we thrive as we love
Time can be the quickest journey
For hunger or labors, it is enough
As all our time ticks away, mercy
Time teaches truths to the student
We can't afford to miss the point
For in the end, we all await
The final exam is hard
But it is fair

The Hammer

Raising a flag, wearing colors, bleed patriot ink

Revel in people finding a nation ready to rise up

Never forget, in hope, we'd become one nation

Yes we disagree on opinions, beliefs and ideals

As we each have talents, gifts, ideas, and views

Freedom evolves as divine sacrifice and peace

To understand costs of our freedom, of union

We struggle but in hope we'll lift our banner
To rise above our chains, freedom is the hammer

Finding Peace, through War?

In slaughter of battle all true warriors are found
Bearing witness to the killing as some celebrate
Proof of their industry and expertise, holy ground
Heroism found on either side, not touched by fate
Warriors, war is not a test, nor machine of policy
A bestial dance of violence, immune to prophecy
The end is coming, dreams of warriors are unkind
This world is not enough, we are limited, by time
Speaking to our flesh, hurry, we've nothing more
As warriors surrender their will, dying by choice
The wars of our living days must thin the numbers
The few survivors will still raise their weak voice
Offering to the creator, their life, and only praise 
Longing for Heaven's wonder, to him I pray
I'm unlike the others, long to know my creator 
Here is our king, I long to now meet his gaze
Knowing he's always been waiting and true
His ways are not secret, his offerings proof

Escaping the wrath

When tomorrow comes, at last, will it be surreal, will it be shrouded in sorrow
Who will be missing, what heart will still be broken, are all dreams unspoken?
In the darkness of the night, as clouds soften the moon's glow, and there's sight
Will you lose the path, be crushed in wrath, is there hope, just how will it last?
This life speaks to a world that never listens, addicted to self and to the night
Here there is no light, a grayness in the mist, hiding all the outcasts, like me
Where all others have been made perfect but those living will envy the dead

Heretic or Genius Son of the God of the Sun

The Gods came from so far away, but made transit in a blink
Distances meant nothing, if needed they might move planets
The star Sirius was home to gods, as Orion's belt that of more
All in furor over the response, in over how one should think
A human, king, a people called him a god but he choose one
Who would now arise as sun god Aten, the focus of power
Their anthems and praise echo still, in the sky voices, soar
Akhenaten divested the priests of power, gods now ignored
Built Armana, devoted a city to Aten's high reign of power
Priests plotted revolt, counter religious revolutions, return
Akhenaten's new order was a moment, as many called a rise
To restore the world to sanity, restoring worship of all gods
The world was lost, for 17 years, and by his blood, he died
Sun disc and Aten remembered in the awakening of Ra
Soon enough however, many Gods were to be cast aside
As masses discovered a new divinity, remembering one
This God was the creator, avenger, harvester and master
This Aten perhaps was served in Heaven by Akhenaten
He was surely no longer called holy by the Egyptians
By one who spent a life trying to share a revelation 

As I lay dead in a Norwich mass grave

We left our harbor a month before snows should fall
Carrying cargo for trade but armor and arms for all
It wasn't a raid, at least not yet, there was a chance
Saxon shores, Frankish domains, providing choices
First we unloaded our cargo, as exhausted we slept
Then saw the sky looking angry, and left the Franks
But the winds drove us to west to the Angles coast
The ship wrecked, so we unloaded, heard voices
And the armed men from Norwich saw us as foes
Gathering ourselves, stopped repairs, and armed
Two lines of men charged one another, screaming
In one moment lives ended, changing everything
My companions won the day, but many died
I'm one of the dead, my kin haven't been told
But I'll be replaced, our people are fertile

It is a mess, and I am so tired

Oh God, Creator of this world, please tell me
Tell me why it even matters, and why you care
Tell me why all my dreams have shattered, if you dare
I spend so much time worrying, over nothing
In the end I've nothing, to bother or destroy
Why dream, care or bother? it's not even my choice
I don't have to sleep, nor ever again dream
All I need to do is exist, earn my voice
Learn from life, all secrets keep

Until I am to be Freed

I worked in my master's lands until he passed
His family then sold their land and each slave
My wife and child were bought and sold again
My healthy looking body led me to new fields
Chosen as a gladiator, they said I had promise
All 20 years in fields had left my body muscled
I had never been a warrior, but I could look it
I've scars from work, muscles built from labor
I've fought exhaustion, but not fought humans
Due to a mind ready to learn and my maturity
My earliest gladiatorial fights less a challenge
As they were contests of human lives, conflict
I endured the early tests, and developed skills
I could fight well, but I would not boast of it
Time spent training, were not to be champion
They were to survive and given my freedom
From there I'll trace my family and free them
I must win my next contest, then know more
Until then I train, I pray, I rest, begin again
If the Gods approve, I will be victorious
But the one I slay will also be out of pain
And now I do not suggest I deserve to win
For all of the others believe they'll win
Not from some hubris found within him
The desperate hope against catastrophe
To be allowed to exist, with no master

Sophia

Beautiful and gentle, slightly afraid of her own shadow
Loving and so soft, well beloved, ready to wear her halo
Uncomplicated, if confused, able to find her way home
She's moved beyond the material realm, waits in heaven
I miss her, forever, my life was made more by her being

Time in Oblivion

I needed faith, needed a guarantee
To design a living, organic being
I can't even live the life I have
Makes me wonder the point of it
My brain tells stories every sleep
I dream and reach for more within
Watching my body fail, as I grieve 
In fathoms deep, lost in the dark
I am bleeding, covered in scars
I live my life silently screaming
Hoping I disappear into nothing
Oblivion, a punishment to some
Not to me

When Ancestors Died

In the thick grass, footsteps crash through the waves
Where the wheat is golden in color and reflects the sun
Looking on the land in astonishment and in reflection
Searching the ground, I am seeking artifacts of battle
It is here, at Canae, the greatest slaughter happened 
Hannibal cut through Romans, as a scythe through grain

To transcend our limits

In every day that breaks, we believe our destiny is now
In this city, we plant the seeds of our legacies, the dream
Ascendant lives we see families rise above sacred ground
For every father and mother there's a child of knowledge
And a world that will become fulfilled, stands on edge
In time it is surely true, my dreams will never relent
In ascension, I'll have reach passed the heights
Revealing the ceiling of our planet Earth 

Without War, Where would we be?

Humanity yet lives, still and forever more, in the shadows of war
The death of innocents will never stop, violence will continue
A bitter truth, humans will kill other humans, unto extinction
Life's a miracle, death's a curse, but it seems, humans hate life
We make up for the slaughter, with memorials and holidays

Every weapon we build, is a tool or investment that we cannot make
Every choice to use violence is a lie, a disguise to hide shame
Some live to serve others, and others live to kill others cold
When the day is over, and the dead have all been counted
We are alive in a horror story constantly told

Why do we fail so often? Perhaps we've made a choice, when challenged, we fight
We live in a world where war is considered the legitimate choice
But lives are thrown away, and for what, protestors and noise?

 

Finding Paradise

Together into the nethers, then to the hereafter
We'll hold hands, knowing even if life isn't fair
Face in the same direction, we see things same
Past is gone, the future is the next generation's
If it is now that Heaven holds us, without pain
We have only one moment, it will last forever
We'll stand for the One who'd called our name
Freed from love's starvation, life's alienation