One Ripe Life

Be welcome all to 

This hallowèd

Hall of reckoning and

Of judgment.

Let your eyes 

Witness bear, see

Justice meted out 

By unfeeling reality,

By a universe insensate,

Which we've empowered to 

Weigh our wraiths 

When we become intimate 

With our sure doom of death.

From that death eternal we'll

Never rise, having lost 

The golden prize that is life.

Then comes the time when 

Our greatest invention,

With no contention,

The universal judge

Begins to feed.

It eats our stock of 

Hoarded stores, our fears,

Emotions, what we are,

The templates of 

The future "we," that in

Dreams we clearly see

And long to make reality. 

And that's not all at all,

There's so much more:

The pain encased in

Erudite philosophies,  

Transient pleasures  

We create to plaster o'er 

Envy, greed, lust and hate.

Though it made no sense, 

In public I stood 

Flaunting fancy vanity with

Rushed rhetoric, sophistry, 

In the hope that there

Might be an unlikely 

Host, just like thee!

An audience, ravenous,

Come to see

The stopping of the 

Clock that's me.

When all is done, I trust, 

That in return for the 

Spectacle provided,

Someone will serve me 

And honourably disperse 

What I've become, a few 

Handfuls of dust

Blown over the sea.