My Angle Sleeps by Stewart Stafford
My angel sleeps, do not disturb,
Painless and gorgeous in repose,
In resting flight, I still see her,
Her embryonic features now froze.
Many times, she called me father,
And hastened me to her side,
Entwined as one, no one to part us,
Now, the earth’s youthful bride.
Let me cast more soil upon you,
To soften your final resting place,
My heart’s core I leave with you,
To claim back when face to face.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
The Cliffs of Consolation by Stewart Stafford
Don’t fall meekly off Life’s precipice,
With Death stamping on weak fingers,
Cling on, scream, fight the inevitable,
For gravity’s jury’s karmic reprieve.
Souls crash in the surf beneath,
The perennial tide of plankton orbs,
In effervescent flows above the bluff,
Doves flying back when the flood’s over.
If beyond salvation, down you plunge,
Assuage yourself with lifetime efforts,
All is pardoned, wiped clean in death,
A phoenix risen from bodily constraints.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
The Ticking Spiral by Stewart Stafford
Man – the only creature that knows it dies,
Creates structures to measure its demise.
To poke and prod with hows and whys;
Hours, seconds, melted candles of surprise.
From booming birth; to bankrupt death,
From nascent looks; to the last breath,
The torch is passed to generations yet.
To carry forth in a cycle reset.
The ticking clock of heartbeats ends,
As we say goodbye to family and friends,
To return to wherever we first transcend,
Time’s ever-flowing river never bends.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
The Taming by Stewart Stafford
As he dropped out of this world,
They made a mourner’s tricorn,
A wet-cheeked, six-armed beast,
Brows melded, shoulders shook.
Throughout their leaden grieving,
Family bonds were beyond price,
Prized more than a hoard of gold,
Those dearest as loaned diamonds.
Dark circles emanated from the plot,
The burial finished with grief paused,
Mass hugs on leaving the cemetery,
To a remembrance feast with family.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
Thoughts On My End by Stewart Stafford
My last moments slip away,
On which day, at what time?
Snow chilling bones faster?
Sweat in blinding sunshine?
Halloween, Xmas or Easter?
Evening or just after dawn?
Pass away on my birthday?
Gifts, mass cards all drawn?
Will it be in long, slow agony?
Or mercifully fast and painless?
What will my drug of choice be?
Will I be conscious or brainless?
Who will be at my bedside?
Many or no one, who can say?
Kind words or total silence?
I’ll hear and be on my way.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved
The Inevitable Tide by Stewart Stafford
The inevitable tide comes,
To claim every one of us,
Whether sufficient breath of life,
Is inhaled deep or forsaken.
Then let them bend and screech,
Their hearsay and homilies,
To rake the ashes of earthly remains,
In our final resting place.
The person no longer lingers,
Gone to Paradise or Hell,
Purgatory or mere rotting decay,
A ghostly rose bled white on binding soil.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
The Mortal Tempest by Stewart Stafford
In the tranquil, shaded crypt,
Life’s storms batter no more,
Historia, the isolated remnant,
Of an interior remembrance.
The howling gale, a mourner’s cry,
Icy tendrils reaching to exert,
The only possible pressure,
On a shell in heedless slumber.
A post-mortem death wish,
Phantom projection of the morbid,
To vacate an urn and soar,
Swirling ash in the mortal tempest.
© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
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