Once More To Live... Poem by Eric Cockrell

we have been a dead people
worshipping dead gods for too long.
our living no more than simple arithmetic,
collecting trinkets we name,
that somehow define us...
to be spread across our graves...
as if, to testify... but to what?
we've built moral cages that drain all color...
have become black and white photographs,
wearing suits, carrying bibles..
and now it seems the world's gone crazy,
violence, sex, rampant poverty...
war after war, hatred after hatred.
we've defiled our beds,
even our shadows have fled.

who are we? who are these faces
that haunt our sleepless nights?
who are the bodies we sleep with?
what is real?

we have become the disease in search of the cure?
but is there a cure?
are we then the living, or just strange shadows,
watching life through smoke yellowed windows?

have we killed the wolf,
and stripped the wings of the hawk?
what ocean lives inside this shell?

do we still hear the voice of the Lover?
would we recognize it if we did?
if we cut our fingers, do we bleed?
are we more than nothing,
but less than something?

have we killed the messenger?
turned the silence to noise?
whose hand on the plow?
is the field then barron?

and this night, if we stop to pray...
will we recognize the mumblings of our spirits?
repentance, the body in the alley,
set ablaze to warm the rats!

do you love me? do i love you?
is there any evidence to prove we're here?
whose hand takes mine?
whose eyes meet mine?
do we dare once more to live?