My latest poem

Growing Old, Only Rest


GROWING OLD tells a story of men of bygone days
Who stood in line to march to death?
On all the fields of time they tramp,
Conjured up in twos and threes, and all,
By chiefs who know, the march that disadvantaged men must go

I see the time when men will march the fields no more,
All that come to march with force will silently die
Death will take its full quota. What will the fields do?
Devoid of men and quiet of thunderous
Foot falls, marching endlessly, consuming-time.

The day when men have fallen and silence rules,
No feet to run, or walk, or help to jump high up the air.
No sound to boil the soil of battleground mud.
Rested from their labours long, silenced now, no steps left or right.
Unbreakable command of living, loving, wiseness
From eternity on high, Silence, Silence, no more stories to be told.

The time of men has ended, and silence rules.
The end of man has come, and total instinctive design has come,
Now the silence of men is present, silent history, silent present,
And silent future yet to come, silence! No more marching feet,

No more footfalls, and no more filthy prints, displayed,
No sucking sound squelched in battleground mud.
No more broken stalks of grass and flower, bulb and branch, only silence.
No single outline of married men. No broken drug’gy joints of friendship,
Once bound, no sorrow, no tears, only windless, echoless silence.

Yet, only half an hour of silence, in heaven it takes, before
The noise of praise begins a wonderful cacophony of glory, and beauty.
The resonance of voices rise in everlasting words,
No feet that muddy waters march, and darken, no more;
Only words re created in creative power.

All the inner mechanisms of men have stopped, forever, yes, forever,
And forever, only half an hour of silence in between.
What do you say my friendly marching man?
One day our feet will stop and move no more,
Each toe will wither and decay, blown silently as dust to dust,
That irritates the power of sight

Toe’s no more required to Holy balance, each body’s magnificence,
Splendour to decompose, like ghosts withering away to nothing, as if never there.
No big toe, no little toe, nothing. No metatarsals, strapped together,
By life’s bloody sinew

Men who stretching gloriously in a lifeless effort to produce a future life NOW
No movement, no noise, all is silent, at this moment silent, ever silent, forever,
No more movement, no not one step left to take, it is ended NOW,
And the grand design is NOW COMPLETE.

Now the ‘put your feet up’ long prepared and planned is entered on.
No noise, even silence silenced. Man has rested from his greatest march of effort,
A boundless folly with pain poured out, when only rest was needed. NOW, all is at rest,
The plan of everlasting design Never full filled with marching feet? Noisy silence no,
Silent praise no, NO, when growing old, ONLY REST.