So Wilmington is having a writing contest. I been thinking about entering a poem. I don’t know if this one is any good or not. It’s kind of just a jotted down smattering of ideas. I also need a title. Thinking of Southern Song. Any suggestions?

The world’s ready to end,
maybe its already the beginning of the end,
or the end of the beginning,
I could never really tell.

Is it all happening again,
and again and again in a eternal spin,
does anyone out there really know,
would we trust them if they told us so?

We focus on our uncivil wars,
We focus on our civil affairs,
We focus on others and ourselves,
Do we focus ourselves into our own despair?

What does this world offer me?
If we are nothing more than stardust,
just twinkling for moments in eternity,
soon to flicker out in to the nothing,
do we carry on, do we carry on?

If we do so, what does it mean for us,
to carry on in that bleak night that
seems to forever be marching on?

I’ve heard a thousand thousand voices,
in a life that has gone by in a twinkling of an eye,
singing a million different choruses,
with accord and harmony and dissonance and animosity,
and I’m not really sure what to make of their songs.

I’ve heard songs of desperation,
song of hope and preparation,
and songs with no melodies at all.

I’m just a poor man serving humanity,
as the shards of humanity whiz past me,
Fighting a war I don’t really understand,
lives fall around me,
Some here and some back to the places
that I use to call home that I can’t return to at all,
steel devils all around me,
trying to end my humanity,
yet we still go marching on and on singing
a chorus with a melody that haunts me to my bones.

What of the poor man serving his family,
working in the cubicle or on the assembly,
or at the checkout counter at the mall,
saying why do you not look at me at all?

How did I end up in this life at all,
I desire to be more than I seem to be,
trying to make more of my humanity,
or is there something more than humanity,
is that what they mean by humility and tranquility
that can be found in the arms of nearly nameless
divinity up above it all?

All the while Eternity calls,
with it’s sirens draw,
lustier passions call,
I can’t seem to answer either call,
where Fate versus Destiny
fight for my soul,
and I question it all,
Am I slave or am I free?

The preacher preaches,
a religionless religion,
with assurances that I seldom have,
oh, how I long out to call and
hear Providence around me fall like
a million drops of rain,
washing way my crimson stains,
bringing refreshment to a thirsty soul.

Oh sovereign God watch over me,
if your up there and listen to my lament,
if you see me as more than your enemy,
help me to believe what my eyes can not see,
open my ears to hear your Voice’s sweet call,
assuming that you listen to fools like me at all.

Let the Spirit within rejoice,
Oh sovereign grace please impart a part
of the sacred heart into this lifeless chest
that needs your beats to revive this hollow breast,
help me to reach for what hands cannot now grasp,
let me rejoice in a sovereign joyful
that can not now here your lover’s laugh,

oh for a joy that feels and fills my oft to empty soul
that struggles for empty toil,
plowing in infertile soil,
are you really there to rescue me,
will you save one who is nothing amazing
at all?

Or will I forever just be one
to questions it all,
in this rather unremarkable,
unassuming southern drawl?