Poetic Rumination

Vanity:
Are we all so vain,
That we are so old,
And cannot be blinded with beauty anymore,
Because our eyes are so aged and dim,
That we have made beauty so frightened of envy,
That it flickers in the shadows of,
A cloud, a leaf, an eyelash,
Are we all so vain?

Games:
Is suicide a game?
Well, then what is a game?
Checkers, chess, dominoes?
Eliminate, checkmate, dominate,
Win or lose, love or hate,
Black and white, a grid-like fate,
If life ain't joy it's second-rate,
Can love be shunned, can love be late?
Is hell or heaven merely bait?
Locked away beneath a grate,
A plastic piece, a candidate,
For which hope can never permeate,
Who yells Just wait, please just wait!
But a clock ticks and a dice rolls on a glossy plate,
A warped reflecting, scratched-up plate,
And you walk with all but a steady gait,
And your death is merely a determined date,
Your power's gone. Exterminate.

Questions:
A question mark is a coily thing,
That makes a sentence weak and thin,
It throws the words up in the air,
And leaves the speaker standing there,
Wide-eyed, trembling, cold and bare.
A question mark looks better in pencil,
Sounds like a rising scale,
Tastes like … a whistle?
Can be a treacherous hook,
Sharp and pointy with a sinister look,
Or could be made of a malleable wire,
Passive or even red-hot with fire,
Or a question mark can look more like an arrow,
A path to the answer, more straight than narrow,
Than if we had avoided it,
Because of its shape, its feel, its grit.
A question mark makes you think,
It makes you stop, pause, swallow, and blink,
A question mark is the very beginning,
And the very end when the light it dinning,
Of everything.
A question mark is more than the digestion,
That the statement was in the form of a question.
It is the diving board.

Lost:
When I see you,
I see a shrivelled heart,
But still as potent and steady,
Fiery and vibrant,
As ever,
In a copper wire frame,
That is bending in on itself.
A much too delicate work of art.
I see a lampshade of fine wispy hair,
I try to see the ever-glowing light behind it.
When I see you,
It is magnified and blurred with pearly tears.
I see a fossil,
Caked in compressed, dusty, dirty, strangling Earth.
When I see you,
I am hopeful, thankful, frantic.
I see a gorgeous metallic dragonfly with mirrored wings,
But they have bent in on themselves,
And you are reflecting your pain,
Into that swelling heart,
That just can't take anymore,
But needs so much more.
When I see you, I can’t bear to see you,
Because your appearance has betrayed you,And when I see you,
I know that when I leave,
I will cry.