When shall human nature at last perceive
  Peaceful coexistence nailed to a cross,
Whose failed ideologies achieve
  Little more than retribution and loss!
That humankind might turn the tattered page
  That advocates intolerance and blame,
And fancies of self-emulating flight
  That discard life in suicidal rage,
As moths flutter headlong into the flame,
  Martyred to misconceived notions of right!

~ Daniel F Mitchell

Fellow on the sidewalk,
Is it so unbearable below?
What blindness makes you so ride?
Senseless, I dare say!

Rain will not hold the sun
Away an hour more.
Best make for the daffodil bed,
Moist soil beneath the weeds at least.

Bold friend, show some prudence!
Your track seems precarious,
Too slow, I fear, to beat the afternoon.
There’s no future here.

Soon meat for a swallow you shall be,
Or baked by the rays hard as tack.
The heat of this day is not yet begun,
And the crack ahead a deep canyon is.

Turn away from this ill quest!
One grass is as green as another.
What difference forward or back?
There is no end to your folly!

~ Daniel F Mitchell

Echoes of Past Voices  

Overhead the setting sun hangs motionless upon the sky,
Thinking of the scenes it shined on yesterday;
Time that passed away in wisps like smoke before a blinking eye,
The who and why just left along the way.

I stand before the rising tide, and cast my gaze to open sea,
Beyond the waves that stretch before my finite reach of hand.
Here I dream of what has been, and what in coming days shall be;
That passes between my fingertips like grains of shapeless sand.

High above, the fleeting clouds, in shapes I can’t identify,
Float listlessly across the painted eve.
Swooping low a seagull cries an ancient dreamer’s lullaby,
Whose notes forgotten memories aggrieve.

Soft against the rising night, the lingering thoughts of daylight bring,
From distant shores, and yet so very near,
Echoes of past voices that in melodies of chaos sing,
As wind might whisper unto a listening ear.

~ Daniel F Mitchell