Eulogy for the Living

So If you read between the lines on his withered skin
There's story but no one is listening

All that's left laid to rest in cardboard tombs
Sits awaiting death in a stark old room

Where a person can turn to a burden
So he dresses in a shirt and ties a noose to that world missed

Man of house, patriarch, bread winner
Reduced to a guest in a home less familiar

Only blood he sees bubbles in syringes
That stings to remind him of his innings

Just another anchor on that ocean floor
A topic of discussion of which treasures are spoken for

He prayed until the days he felt unheard
Discovered darkness, remembered that he loved her

And fights the urge to give in
Now the memories of her are his religion

Ruins hide the wisdom
Youth in equilibrium
Beautify the killing
When we eulogise the living

Euthanise decisions
The future I'm misgiving
Dehumanise the victim
When we eulogise the living

I hope you live to see your loneliest days
What a felonious phrase
I'm just charmed by your stoic ways

I hope you live to see your loneliest days
What I was hoping to say
That the world needs your knowing grace

Bless the young
They seldom come
For a severed tongue
Or breathless lungs

Some swan songs are best unsung

So If you read between the lines on her weathered face
There's a story that emanates of better days

She can blink away a decade but seconds take an age
Trapped in a body only memories escape

That TV flickers images of foreign times
Feels like she's fossilising, but not the eyes

Carer, matriarch, stronghold
Reduced to a stranger in a foreign home

Her train of thoughts run on abandoned lines
Recognising stops but the tracks won't oblige

A kaleidoscope mind obscures and frustrates
Trying to figure out the images before they decay

Her inner child chasing coherence like butterflies
For everyone she catches another dies

She pines the night might take her in her sleep
So she can be graceful in her defeat

Ruins hide the wisdom
Youth in equilibrium
Beautify the killing
When we eulogise the living

Euthanise decisions
The future I'm misgiving
Dehumanise the victim
When we eulogise the living

I hope you live to see your loneliest days
What a felonious phrase
I'm just charmed by your stoic ways

I hope you live to see your loneliest days
What I was hoping to say
That the world needs your knowing grace

Bless the young
They seldom come
For a severed tongue
Or breathless lungs

Some swan songs are best unsung