Dave

In the end he had given over to drink in toto

Blood of my blood brother Dave

In a fast march to oblivion

Seeking an early grave

A bodily death wish a painful, inevitable end

Helpless, I could but attend

 

Like Tantalus, reaching but never taking

The ambrosial fruits of life. Drinking the empty cup

And never slaking the parching thirst.

He always ran behind and never caught up

Restrained by filaments of utopia's shiny web

For him, his ship always sailed after the tidal ebb.

 

Searching for a hero, someone to make him worthy

Never realizing the value of his own zest for life

Short of an idol to worship using a vice instead

Sometimes this adulation (for me) lead to strife  

I resented the undue attention, but now I see

He knew no other way to express his love for me

 

I remember my young son crying over the death

Of a wild dog shot in the wood

He, watching the life flow out in the blood

Of the wound, there were no words that ever could

Allay my son's grief or make him forget

He had seen real life too soon to my deep regret

 

And so it was with Dave, like a wounded creature

His bleeding soul slowly draining life's essence

And like the hemorrhaging creature blind to its cause

Rushing its death in total nescience

The soul cannot succor comfort for the mind

When its provenance is nulled by a hideous divine

 

Is the human spirit so given to damnation

Do we, when hope is gone, use self flagellation?

Hurrying to our deaths without purpose, totally oblivious