DEATH
has a Waiting Room
that invites Everyone
but no one wants
to sit
The TV is broken
The magazines are out of date
The chairs are uncomfortable
The coffee is bad
The rattling water cooler
never refreshes
The Clientele
too familiar and annoying
with their hacking
incessantly loud obnoxious yawnings
and an occasional party noise
You’re not sure that comes from
a person or the faux vinyl seat
you never intended to quite fit
It’s a room with poor ventilation
The carpet is worn
but not faded
stubbornly holding onto its colors
and a scent that can’t quite be
identified or replicated
There’s the dim light
that can never be squinted Brighter
All this
and just like that
You’re no longer there
–noticed–
Even before your name is mispronounced
to come forth
DEATH
is a finish line
We all run from
to only find out
at the End
we’ve all madly sprinted
Our Way Towards
(c o n t i n u o s l y)
OLD JESUS
I saw an old Jesus
Walking through
A crowded waiting room
In a place
no one wanted to be
He Shuffle passed me
In faded, wrinkled pajama bottoms
And a lifeless gray T-shirt
Sipping on a stained Styrofoam
cup of coffee
He floated to a pause
In awe of the brightly colored fish
Swimming around a shiny but finger smudged aquarium
And they seemed to multiply
Wildly in a flurry of surreal color
that eyes could barely focus
and imaginations dare to envision
A Hand Out
became a Life Raft
My ice water took on a different taste of Merlot
that left a warm glow which seemed to illuminate within me
An ember that glowed
warmed
without incinerating
With a mere ever so light touch of his fingertips
Or a soft gaze of his eyes
One by one we were
metamorphosized
And then in a much
quicker than the blink of an eye
and way less subtle than the distinct note
from a shiny trumpet
There was a suddenness
Of difference
I not only forgot why I was there
I was in fact
No longer there