(In memory of George “Difficult Listening” Tennell—
Creative artist, music man, and my friend)

Death, when it takes human life,
Strikes always early, I say;
A hundred years of strife
Is brief as a winter day.
A turtle or parrot outlives
The span that is granted to man;
To sequoias, nature gives
Thousands of years for a span.
Man, brief as the blink of an eye,
Never yet has truly grown old;
Even Methuselah had to die
With much less than trees’ lives unfold.
A tree, without thinking or sense—
A tree, without hatred or love—
Cannot laugh at man’s transience,
As the stars seem to laugh from above.
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Yet, brief within brevity’s breath,
People fall far short of their span,
And meet with a more tragic death—
Even earlier than the time set for man.
With sadness, I move my pen
To mark the death of a friend:
Creative, thoughtful, and “in”—
Whose life and art were a blend
As rough and raw as rude truth:
Like pain and pleasure; love and lust;
As all the years of our youth
Poured out like bright blood on the dust.
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A magician who charmed my ear,
He wove sounds together anew;
A gifted pioneer
Of sound montage, with a strong artist’s hue;
With philosophy’s searching eye—
Yet giving a humorous wink:
For all things as with wings must fly,
Soon light on the sea, and sink.


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Written by Michael L.P.
aka Mr. Poet, aka MLP, aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC
(I'm just me)  
Copyright © 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rigthts reserved