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 whose called our name
Freed from love's starvation, life's alienation

Blood covered and still gentle

I heard a powerful, distinct voice, calling me from death
A savior, covered in blood by my hand, the spotless lamb
Calling my name, saying it was time to live, lit my flame
An end would not be the end, I don't own my final breath

In Orbit

Floating above the surface of earth
I looked upon the deep blue world
Glorious, with green life abundant
A planetary source of life, purpose
I'd cried gently, the earth observed
Dust turned living clay, triumphant
Life giving new life, life giving birth

In the Darkness

Light is our power, darkness is an emptiness
Fire burns darkness, patience destroys hours
While captured in a void, there's no way out?
We wander so blind as do simple humanoids
The world we wish to have is far from reach
Should we create different worlds or change?
The path unknowable, or one we cannot seek

Two Black Swans in a world of White

The world thought us odd, and we were surely that
But to be different than the many, a wonderful fact
We have never lived upon their terms for our being
Nor will we live upon their praise to be farseeing
So a world sees us as different, a praise always
We are two black swans among a flock of white
Two black swans in a great world of others
We simply desire to be one with another
And so we find ourselves where we are
Alone in world, connected at the heart

I am wounded, my love is lost

My love, my sweet Cymoril, princess
We grew up together, always in love
No moment between the first feelings
And now, you lay upon a marble floor
Our Melniboné shall not be beautiful
Its anthems will ring hollow and false
It will be less wise, able, without you
No dragons and the masters in the sky
You knew wonder still, as others sneer
Your mind was grace fulfilled, powerful
Yet you know as I, Melnibonéan ways
Your form of flesh was pleasing to view
Broken now in thought of me and no you
We'd be together a day in new horizons
For now lay in death, so cold and alone
I shall hunt the others, all who test you
And then we will sleep anew, together
Eventually enter each others dreams
Together ruling over a new Melniboné 
It will rise, from the depths, renewed
Because our love will become flame
A torch to new generations and proof
Melniboné has always been and will be
The greatest empire, ancient, glorious

(This uses two characters and a setting, Elric the Eternal 
Champion By Michael Moorcock and is not my original 
concept, it is fan written, and asserts no © challenge.)

Art by Harry Clarke, in public domain

Frozen in the moment

The future is uncertain, all our past forgotten
Our decisions ignored and choices laughed at
We have only ghosts, memories and caution
The cemeteries we walk through are trapped
We'll never escape, for we're all ill begotten
Life is the struggle, existence tests the flesh
Held above for public scrutiny and hatred
At the end, terminus is payable on death
We freeze frame, and then face a test
Should one live or die, left aghast 

Before Order Was Lost to Chaos: Zep Tepi

I became aware of the foolish time of the present
The mysteries of antiquity laughed at my question
The world composed of one 20,000 year moment
Or has there been phases of development and loss
As there was now, there was everything before it
Entropy strips away all layers and destroys order
As chaos leads to silence and harmony cast aside
Zep Tepi all before now, existence dwindles time
Without our species memory, it does not matter
Surrounded by an enigma so complex, it is quiet
As we look, but no one perceives the absence

If I matter

If I matter to others, I'd have to doubt it
But I believe as my pain shouts about it
I'm wasting my grace, it'll soon be empty
I've swum in cesspools, one of the many
Existence never relents and so I dream
Let me forever sleep, all my secrets keep
Transcend my temporal cage, in my being
To enter the place I've lived only to find
My body gone, but my soul and mind
Receive reward of these efforts to seek
Remain to perceive and to know belief

Need, Desire, Conflict, Consequences

Despite the confluence of streams, we remain
We might be alive with reason or manic energy
A central hive mind makes decisions, precision
We are alive but subject to the forces and needs
Our passions burn, despite the group's hunger
We'll see one another as stealing their own flow
A world waits but we cannot escape the treason
The flesh submits, the spirit needs are different
The central hive cries out, alone it can't survive
And the end of all being, the spirit alone exists
Even as the flesh demands, our spirit resists

Artist Jean Delville, Symbolist 1894
Parsifal

as the walls encroach

My life was one of some privilege, given hope but with a cost
The standard response might have been success, but I was lost
I'm educated, I was guided to become an artist, but such dross
My work is hated by some, ignored by most, barely exist now
Obeisance due to those needing proper respect and great hope
Life isn't perfect, rarely, my remaining days reveal the cracks
I stand and look off into the distance, while the horizon nears
It will swallow up my being, missing hope, an emptied vessel
These choices all laid before me, and not one means a thing
In emptied hope, dreams never were fulfilled and now bleed
To stare into the burning sun does not blind me, but I bleed
Starved for the things that might sustain me, ink stains still
I've gone so long without normal dreams with no sleep until
It is time for me to leave this place, as the horizons reach
My broken body cannot deliver hope, nor deliver belief
Waiting upon the coroner's team to find my body here
Where they will choose the type of death I received

Running through Barbed Wire

Told I must run after removing my legs, cutting off my feet

I was done and long before the insults to flesh, failed tests

I was overdone, overwhelmed, breathing without a breath

Dreaming without sleep, open eyes and visions of defeat

The dead are the fortunate, as the living face living death

We're called upon to survive as the world around us dies

Crawling towards the escape, but dying before freedom

Focus

Verdant setting, luscious green and the calming waters
A moment of silence, peaceful, time offered on altars
With a purpose to dive deep within, delving lost truth
The focus shattered by thoughts being false, not proof
As thoughts pierce the veil, thoughts cry out for more
The emptiness within, loneliness enters one's core
But here's more than enough to solve the questions
Learn to live determinedly and not just by intention

Getting old and broken

Have you noticed, my flesh is broken and a spirit is missing
My body thrown into the waste bin, can you hear the hissing
The voices of the dead are calling, their bodies lay twitching
I'm not dead, I'm falling, as a book of the dead is printing