Last Thoughts

I have nothing left to say

All my thoughts have blown away,

And I dread the sun that rises in the morning,

For my wife will look at me

Knowing all my history,

While my emptiness is all that I was born in.

 

For the world has bled me dry

Took the tears I meant to cry,

And corrupted everything that I believed in,

All the things I thought were right

Disappeared overnight,

Leaving only false ideals that were deceiving.

 

All I see is greed and hate

Love that tends to dissipate,

And the friends that turn away when you are needing,

All the former friends before

Who came knocking at your door,

But don’t want to know the score when you are bleeding.

 

Life is much too long alone

When your family has grown

Leaving just the faintest essence of their passing,

When they find the world out there

They have little left to share

But the faded photographs you lived your past in.

I was young, but now I’m old

So the story has been told

And there’s little in the future I’ll be keeping,

But a faded, caring wife

Who stood by me in this life,

And will still be by my side when we are sleeping.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

a sad write, so often you are distanced - a story teller weaving the fortunes and mishaps of the curious and the humble around mechanically brilliant meter and word but in this case this one feels more introspective, more personal
Life is much too long alone
When your family has grown
Leaving just the faintest essence of their passing,
When they find the world out there
They have little left to share
But the faded photographs you lived your past in.
I am a genealogist by hobby - working on archiving some old pictures, and that stanza especially hit me.

[Mark]

Contrary to Linda's assessment, I found your essay into a new metric refreshing. This 7-7-12 pattern (held so magnificently, need I add?) reminded me of the true craftsman you are, and harked back to the stuff from the earlier books where you were yet experimenting with a full apothecary of forms. You know, of course, that I can never tire of you, and If I review less often today than previously, it is simply that I have run out of superlatives to describe you in/them with, and by no means am out of either appreciation or zeal. I should love to see you pursue some of the classic old forms like Villanelle and Sestina; though Villanelle would be a dire challenge for one so loquacious, I believe Sestina would suit you to a tee!

[TPK Stories]

Wonderful sentiments Poppysilver.

[David Scott]

You usually write fiction and use imagination.
One other of your recent poems reflected back to a real life love...

Here, I see despondency toward the concept of human fidelity in friendships. Where have all my friends gone? Also, I see gratitude for a spouse who is beside you. Maybe not perfect, but always there for you.

We are not immune to the laws of nature. Communities bring individuals together, but there is an entropy to all things. In the last moments, only the "nuclear" elements of our lives remain close... Some of this is our own doing as well, but mostly it is the nature of life. Still, friendships are not invalid if they fade into a past of proximities we find ghostly thin in the now... It is a hurtful reality.

On the future...
You write how there is no future. How your wife will lay beside you in your graves...
Without any faith, this finality is the reality. This can be our truth. Much like in life, what we choose to believe becomes our reality.
I do not know if this write is again a fiction or not, but must say our bodies do not define our existence...
David, we are Spirit as well. We hold the "Breath of God" in this vessel of flesh and bone... (A great topic for one of your ballads btw ).
Choose to believe your spirit will find life beyond the valley of the grave and it will be so. Beyond the grave, your friends will not be bound to the cares and worries of this flesh either. Just think how closely knit a community of spirits can be... Ha. A funny thought eh?

Well, you have me thinking. You have me questioning my own quality of kindness to my friends. We all fail those we care for. This too is a reality. I guess this failure allows a site of vulnerability for our relationships to attach to the hardness of protective mechanisms? Maybe.

Anyhow, you are a good man, a great poet, a loving father, a devoted husband and a good friend David. I will not count your failings and pray you of not count mine. Ha.

Have a blessed Christmas and consider the possibility a Heavenly child was born to connect and restore immortality to human mortality. What could it change if you did choose to believe the version of the story?

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

This poem hangs heavy - bone-weary and tired - like the sagging skin of wrinkled time. Your voice is different here, along with the structure. It's almost as if you're too tired to write; and rather than writing in your normal verse, this one has been shortened as a reflection of such. It is no less classy. It's just heavy and weighted and literally drags down the atmosphere so that clouds nestle in the heart of the reader.

You've had an exhausting year, writing so much; and I'm sure these words are a reflection of that effort.

As always, you know that I love you and your work.

[Daniel Sala]

What a beautiful, reflective poem, full of wisdom. A well-ordered poem.

[Akshay Rawal]

I wonder if anyone else can write about Old age better than This. The elder needs support, and encouragement, so that he doesn't feel any pathos in life, If I have deciphered the message right....

[Tate Morgan]

It is the tale told by everyone of us in the end But not as eloquently as you

[Baby Ricochet]

WOw that's terrible. Maybe you just need to move to a better neighborhood.

[Marie]

THis is too depressing to think about at Christmas (which is depressing enough...).