A Writing on the Net SM
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We Lost Them
By John Clark
Copyright 2000 John Clark
A poem about losing people.

We've lost them
Their smiling faces are worn and grim
Their natures swing from top to down ... to anywhere
In space of time belying change
And, bewilderedly, we look and .... and sometimes, plead
For what it is we are to do ... or they have done
Receiving looks so strange..or worse, a quick
remembered laugh..a joke..a jab
"lighten up..you're too heavy. I'm OK"
Knowing they are not
We've lost them
To the ice that chills their spines and numbs their
brains
Removing them from everyday and giving transport far away
To clouded no-care world ... to scary no-scare world
Where we cannot follow
We know the wit, the quickness still prevails
For how long? ... before they're hollow
 
We've lost them
They bury noses in the deep, white sand that blinds them
to our days
And from their mothers' teats, they're weaned
To sucking on the pipes of death
They'll not spend an.hour in their old pursuits
that tied them to the family tie
It seemed enough to please them for so long a time
 
Their constant drive is for the god of snow
who occupies the day and sweeps the night away
And runs them .. runs them.. into callous,c ynic
old-age minds...into primeval whores
It's not that they've lost their talent to perform
their zeal to goal-achieve -
They've only turned another way ... to lower aims
to baser conquests
 
We've lost them
And not to any new or recent plague..Oh no!
The poison has been there for centuries..in plain view
waiting to be eaten
and so, we ask..is that it ?... did we not? could we have?
Reasons be damned ... they are there and we are here
...... and we've lost
Not only them, but us, as well
And, God, we must try to find them back
before they die..beforrrre thheeyyy diiieee!!!
Or we do ....... stop kidding me .... stop kidding you
We've lost them .....