Death & Art

Our spirit leaves
as a fart might depart
As sudden as a sneeze,
or as stubborn as a heart
...

Do not expect it to say please
a'fore it makes to start
You may as well rebuke the breeze
The horse who's fled its cart
The birds who fly the trees
The clouds that drift apart
No rhyme shall live in fate's decrees
nor reason shall compart
And disagrees, as spirit flees,
to all but death and art ~

So seek ye not the keys
to the reaper's grim ecarte

Nor seize the boatman's fees
at river's swift rampart
Nor displease the Stygian bees
that sting the faint of heart

Nor petition less unease
through the teachings of Descartes
Nor recipes from Socrates
who thought he was so smart

Nor guarantees to freeze disease
from some physician's chart
Who's own trustees were abductees,
for all they might impart

For none of these philosophies
Nor faith, their counterpart
Nor expertise in sage degrees
can heal the worrywart
Nor fall upon your knees with pleas,
"O hourglass, restart!"
Best eat, with mustard dignities,
our last meal's bitter tart

Nor ponder what great mysteries
were struck by life's last dart
An aim is all the soul retrieves,
the rest shall fall apart
Nor grieve when we achieve
little more than when we start
The effort made, not what it leaves
shall be the noble part
Man plans, God laughs, time flees
and leaves us naught but death and art.

No rhyme shall live in fate's decrees
nor reason shall compart
And disagrees, as spirit flees,
To all but death and art.
To all but death and art.

-McW