Diminishing / Final Exit by Michael Keshigian

Diminishing 

Not to touch

what was once touched,

never to see

what was once seen,

or failing to realize a feeling

once fulfilling,

creates a void in the soul,

a ghost within,

meandering throughout

the darkness of the heart

to slowly empty

fond memories

collected throughout

the pitcher of years

and with sight ever faltering,

those endeared emotions

grow damp and indistinct

with each attempt of recollection,

the webbed caverns of recall,

falling prey

to the acres of emptiness

passing years present

even as the fading light

strives valiantly

to illuminate

those diminishing sensations.

Final Exit

 

He wondered how his final exit might occur,

violent and heinous

or silent and alone.

Would crimson brilliance dominate

with intense pain

in red rivers of helpless realization

or will each breath dwindling

sleepily shorten

in a count down toward final drift off

in life’s conclusive irony.

Might images which plagued him daily

finally evaporate

or eternally bound his fleeting soul

which would rise and fall

or hover about the room

till retrieved by an unseen host,

opening doors to unseen worlds,

perhaps exiting

through a starlit entrance

in a reversal of fortune,

no fanfare accompanying departure

as he might drift

amid the moon and stars,

twinkling indifferently

to his arriving vapor,

revealing no secrets,

and might he realize the scene

to describe with poetic intensity

or will he float endlessly

as a gaseous haze

above the lugubrious whimpers.

Michael Keshigian has recently been published in The California Quarterly, Chiron Review, San Pedro River Review, and Panoply as well as many other national and international journals.  He is the author of 14 poetry collections and has been nominated 7 times for a Pushcart prize and 3 times for Best of the Net.