TO THE LAST

by Gerald T. Ching

In dark slumbering dreams

when the commotions of life,

simmer down

and the pounding in my chest

helps to remind me that I am alive,

Your Spirit engulfs me

in the sweetness of Your essence.

In smoky mirrored lens

the dense fog of broken memory

lifts the swirling and fleeting images of remembrance

that flash like fire flies, grounding me

from floating away to be lost into the unknown.

My mind toils in jealous rage,

threatening to harden this gentle heart.

Blinding images that lie to my mind’s eye

causes a roaring uprising,

sending me weeping in anger

to sulk in a lightless corner.

In isolation, in the desperate depths of worry

I am forced to battle these rising tides.

Clothed in the many blankets of my defenses,

behind the tall towers of these strongholds

I weep in long, loud, hard sobs

wishing for an end to the menacing

green-eyed monstrosity of suspicion

running in hateful rampage and with blind abandon.

I am helpless.

Stark, vengeful thoughts

bubble and boil in my sinful mind.

Racing at light speeds, the flickering images penetrating

the fog of war that has blinded

the eyes of my heart, which is spiked in fear.

The anxious pounding in my chest

reminding me of this weakness,

breaks me to my knees in submission;

raging and reeling in guilt.

Exhaustion over comes me

with the passing of this first wave.

The rushing of adrenaline

seeps away unforgivably in this jealous rage,

taking a little piece of my gentle spirit

without a second glance of regret;

thoughtlessly discarding it,

haphazardly tossing it among all the other debris.

With the trumpeting of the buglers sounding the cease fire,

all commotion slows as judgment finally falls across the land.

Laying in heaps on the battlefield, scattered and strewn about

amongst the loneliness of senseless violence

lay the bits and pieces of shattered souls.

In pathetic piles, in stillness, breathing in labored exhales,

their light slowly dims.

In the distance with the setting sun

pestilence, fire, decay and death menace the horizon.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse ride,

sweeping up the scattered debris.

Bearing down on the fields of war

they trample the remaining fading stars.

Gathering up the extinguishing bits

of darkness and light into themselves,

in supreme justice they clear and cleanse,

leaving in their wake a barren wasteland

with the sun sizzling finitely into the sea,

while the moon rises for its final dance in the cosmos.