poems for Liam
Cloud Atlas
( for Liam )
“People pontificate, ‘suicide is selfish,’ while career churchman like Pater call it a coward's act typically because they lack the necessary suffering to sympathize. Couldn't be further from the truth; suicide takes tremendous courage.”
You were a husband and father-
a devotional man kneeling at the altar
of friendship, supporting right and wrong
in accordance to your moral compass
Most of all, you were a human being;
therefore, subject to earthly demons
taunting thoughts beyond control
perhaps memories or regrets-
maybe voices calling you home
who doesn’t contend
with such in the flesh
One thing I know – your choice
is no one’s fault, because you
were not a man to blame someone else;
but, assumed responsibility
for your own decisions
It’s an eternal recurrence, this life
the one before – those to follow-
Because “Our lives are not our own.
We are bound to others, past and present,
and by each crime and every kindness
we birth our future.”
If there was anything I could say to you
it’s that you will be remembered by me
as a man who didn't take this decision lightly-
and, for whatever reason, thought leaving
in the best interest of your family
If I can imagine you now, this moment
you quietly walked through a door
with your name on it- available to open
anytime you were ready to return home
because we are not prisoners of this world
We each have an assigned exit route
available when it becomes too much-
when the weight of flesh and bone
is too heavy for our spirits to bear
suffocating our will to continue
If I could imagine you in the future
I would see those you loved most
walk through their own doors
at their chosen or appointed time-
to find you waiting for them
Godspeed, Liam
Until we meet again. . .
“People pontificate, ‘suicide is selfish,’ while career churchman like Pater call it a coward's act typically because they lack the necessary suffering to sympathize. Couldn't be further from the truth; suicide takes tremendous courage.”
You were a husband and father-
a devotional man kneeling at the altar
of friendship, supporting right and wrong
in accordance to your moral compass
Most of all, you were a human being;
therefore, subject to earthly demons
taunting thoughts beyond control
perhaps memories or regrets-
maybe voices calling you home
who doesn’t contend
with such in the flesh
One thing I know – your choice
is no one’s fault, because you
were not a man to blame someone else;
but, assumed responsibility
for your own decisions
It’s an eternal recurrence, this life
the one before – those to follow-
Because “Our lives are not our own.
We are bound to others, past and present,
and by each crime and every kindness
we birth our future.”
If there was anything I could say to you
it’s that you will be remembered by me
as a man who didn't take this decision lightly-
and, for whatever reason, thought leaving
in the best interest of your family
If I can imagine you now, this moment
you quietly walked through a door
with your name on it- available to open
anytime you were ready to return home
because we are not prisoners of this world
We each have an assigned exit route
available when it becomes too much-
when the weight of flesh and bone
is too heavy for our spirits to bear
suffocating our will to continue
If I could imagine you in the future
I would see those you loved most
walk through their own doors
at their chosen or appointed time-
to find you waiting for them
Godspeed, Liam
Until we meet again. . .
Written by Ahavati
(Tams)
Go To Page
Angel you have fought your fight now fall gracefully into God's welcoming arms of comfort.
Take your angel wings, golden ring of a halo placed upon your head and let your troubles be laid to rest.
While we mourn your physical being, let us ode the man whose soul was bare to the world and did not shy when it came to speaking his mind.
A man who served as an inspiration to all who he came in contact with.
A man who spilled the contents of his ink to paint us a vivid image of how much he truly loved his family.
You were truly a king in your own right and always flaunted the beauty and essence that your queen blossomed into your world.
You truly bought a light to DUP and as long as we poets are here your torch may never go out.
I want to send my deepest condolences to the family of Liam. May God continue to watch over you all in this time of mourning. He was truly a bright spirit here on DUP and that same light he showed rubbed off to others. Although we may not know all the battles you faced just know that you and your work will live on throughout in our hearts.🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Take your angel wings, golden ring of a halo placed upon your head and let your troubles be laid to rest.
While we mourn your physical being, let us ode the man whose soul was bare to the world and did not shy when it came to speaking his mind.
A man who served as an inspiration to all who he came in contact with.
A man who spilled the contents of his ink to paint us a vivid image of how much he truly loved his family.
You were truly a king in your own right and always flaunted the beauty and essence that your queen blossomed into your world.
You truly bought a light to DUP and as long as we poets are here your torch may never go out.
I want to send my deepest condolences to the family of Liam. May God continue to watch over you all in this time of mourning. He was truly a bright spirit here on DUP and that same light he showed rubbed off to others. Although we may not know all the battles you faced just know that you and your work will live on throughout in our hearts.🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Damn it
I wonder was there more i could do
I spent alot of time talking to you
Your girls are heart broken its true
Rarely have I seen the world so blue
My mind drifting way back
To the time in the sand and a sack
Powerhouse few could stack
Back bone to all who was scared on the rack
So many time you proved them wrong
Didnt know it be so long
The world will never know the man i saw so strong
Now I'm talking bout you and your gone
Spent the day wiping tears from my eyes
Wonder if your looking down from the skies
How the hell do I console you kids and wife
Sad and bitter howd you take your life.
I whish i could bring you back
Pain in my heart like an attack
Cant seem to understand how you got off track
Love isnt something you was in lack
This is killing me its true
For anyone else look and see what it do
Dont do this there are many people that love you
Sit and talk theirs other things to do
Right now i got stop
I cant even write through the tear drops
I wonder was there more i could do
I spent alot of time talking to you
Your girls are heart broken its true
Rarely have I seen the world so blue
My mind drifting way back
To the time in the sand and a sack
Powerhouse few could stack
Back bone to all who was scared on the rack
So many time you proved them wrong
Didnt know it be so long
The world will never know the man i saw so strong
Now I'm talking bout you and your gone
Spent the day wiping tears from my eyes
Wonder if your looking down from the skies
How the hell do I console you kids and wife
Sad and bitter howd you take your life.
I whish i could bring you back
Pain in my heart like an attack
Cant seem to understand how you got off track
Love isnt something you was in lack
This is killing me its true
For anyone else look and see what it do
Dont do this there are many people that love you
Sit and talk theirs other things to do
Right now i got stop
I cant even write through the tear drops
Liam
( a Rensaku = linked Tanka )
I was in the dark
when I got the news my friend
no lights were left on—
the last of the summer heat
was turning me into ash
▫️
as my blistered thoughts
try to make sense of it all—
am I still breathing
why am I and you are not,
your queens-in-training weep
▫️
we talked on that day,
you told me you’d be leaving
you were unhappy
trying to be a writer
as good as me you had said
▫️
I offered to help,
I knew you’d been struggling
and said please don’t go,
but it never dawned on me
as you politely listened
▫️
I was in the dark
when I got the news my friend
no lights were left on—
the last of the summer heat
was turning me into ash
▫️
as my blistered thoughts
try to make sense of it all—
am I still breathing
why am I and you are not,
your queens-in-training weep
▫️
we talked on that day,
you told me you’d be leaving
you were unhappy
trying to be a writer
as good as me you had said
▫️
I offered to help,
I knew you’d been struggling
and said please don’t go,
but it never dawned on me
as you politely listened
▫️
Written by Jade-Pandora
(jade tiger)
Go To Page
LostGirl18 said:What the fuck .. you can't be serious..
He has a wife and children.
How can anyone be sure he committed suicide and didn't just exit the Deep of his own free will?
He message me goodbye.
LG, a real life friend of his who is a DU member as well informed Crimsin. He has also posted in this thread. Liam's account is gone, but I am grateful his words are still on our poems - though I will miss his offerings.
I understand your shock and disbelief - I experienced it as well.
He has a wife and children.
How can anyone be sure he committed suicide and didn't just exit the Deep of his own free will?
He message me goodbye.
LG, a real life friend of his who is a DU member as well informed Crimsin. He has also posted in this thread. Liam's account is gone, but I am grateful his words are still on our poems - though I will miss his offerings.
I understand your shock and disbelief - I experienced it as well.
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
I wrote this sometime ago looking back at a point in my life. I first posted it on another site to try to help someone who was struggling. I first posted it here under my former handle, A_Tellers_Tale for the same reason. I didn't know Liam. I only knew the place and choice as it applied to me...And I genuinely sympathize with those left behind who don't understand why. I am posting this for any other unknowns out there standing at the crossroads. I don't have all the answers but I am willing to listen. And willing to talk and help if I can.
If my posting this here offends I will delete it. Offense isn't my intention.
There Are No Bridges to Disconnect
"Let me guess. You want to know why I tried to kill myself.
You want to know how I survived. Why I disappeared. Where I've been all this time. But first, why I tried to kill myself, right?
It's OK. People do. They measure themselves against me. It's like this line is drawn somewhere in the world and if you never cross it, you'll never consider throwing yourself off a building or swallowing a bottle of pills - but if you do, you might.
People figure I crossed the line. They ask themselves, "Could I ever get as close as he did?"
The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you.
Or who isn't."
Mitch Albom
"For One More Day"
***
What are pathways? The ways and the knowings aren't always easy to understand. We walk in mists of darkness towards an unknown future...having faith that love, beauty, and peace will all be there. Through sunlight and darkness we wander...there's no staying behind. Simple really, the same rules apply for everyone: time goes on and one day you die - everything else has been called a crap shoot. I wouldn't go that far...but I've gone farther than I ever imagined I could go.
I don't say anything of any special knowledge. There's good breaks and bad. Some people can handle some things that others can't. Not really much on my mind today about the folks that are still walking in sunlight, I've had shadows on my mind. Some folks break all at once, shattered, and the pieces lie scattered everywhere and can never be put back together again. Some people fade, the things they once knew simply blurring into a distance that can't be regained. Others wake to the reality one day, like a last conscious thought, that the things that they once could control now control them...and some simply drown.
I know that everyone knows disappointments, heartbreak, the lonely hours...shame and embarrassment too. That's another of life's rules.
There's a point though where sometimes everything loses focus. Lines blur. Hearts fail. Dreams die.
At least sometimes. For some people.
There can be a place past feeling hollow and being numb. A dark place, for evil has it's garden too...and an entrance to it's tomb.
I know losing control. And blurring lines. And being controlled in the end...in a place where there are no pathways.
However, I don't know how to explain many things.
What explanation is there when things cease to be rational? When you lose control and wake up to the realization of being controlled and everything else spinning away from you. Away from view and there's nothing left to hold onto.
How do you explain that darkness is a weight too? It's a brand and a scar. And having touched it, always having the thought buried in the back of your mind, wondering some moments if you could ever go back there?
There are many places you can't go. The bridges are burned. Lives have moved on.
The way back to the light is twice as far. Twice as hard. Just an uphill climb and the things that held you down don't let go.
It's strange, that point in time when everything is laid bare. When there's only one thing left to lose besides your mind. It's like your a thought free floating and looking down on yourself...because there's no feeling left, just a choice. People make countless choices everyday, mostly without thinking. Here there's no direction. No way to turn, no right and wrong, only to be...do I want to BE. It's a surreal question for an irrational mind. There are no bridges to disconnect.
Sometimes we just fail in spite of abuse and accidents and last "conscious" decisions to end the pain...and we go on. We wake up somehow, somewhere and find we're still here. It's no longer a question of do I want to BE. You just ARE. Some cosmic chance has happened and you've been refused exit from the pain.
Some people don't take no for an answer.
Some people do.
There are miracles in hell, just as there's hell on earth.
It's strange to feel again. You've been so numb to pain to wake up to it again is almost like a new sensation. One that calls you back to the dark. That would take you back to that place. That choice.
They say many soldiers won't talk about combat but not every war takes place on a battlefield. And not many speak of this fight. Something always gets left behind in war. People never come back the same. It's not about coming back to love, beauty, and peace at first. It's just one more minute, one more hour, one more day.
And some day, somehow you see a single ray of sunlight in your wilderness again...
It's being accepted by someone again...after being no one to anyone for so long.
And accepting responsibility for your past.
Accepting responsibility for being.
And believing again, that there can be a future...
If my posting this here offends I will delete it. Offense isn't my intention.
There Are No Bridges to Disconnect
"Let me guess. You want to know why I tried to kill myself.
You want to know how I survived. Why I disappeared. Where I've been all this time. But first, why I tried to kill myself, right?
It's OK. People do. They measure themselves against me. It's like this line is drawn somewhere in the world and if you never cross it, you'll never consider throwing yourself off a building or swallowing a bottle of pills - but if you do, you might.
People figure I crossed the line. They ask themselves, "Could I ever get as close as he did?"
The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you.
Or who isn't."
Mitch Albom
"For One More Day"
***
What are pathways? The ways and the knowings aren't always easy to understand. We walk in mists of darkness towards an unknown future...having faith that love, beauty, and peace will all be there. Through sunlight and darkness we wander...there's no staying behind. Simple really, the same rules apply for everyone: time goes on and one day you die - everything else has been called a crap shoot. I wouldn't go that far...but I've gone farther than I ever imagined I could go.
I don't say anything of any special knowledge. There's good breaks and bad. Some people can handle some things that others can't. Not really much on my mind today about the folks that are still walking in sunlight, I've had shadows on my mind. Some folks break all at once, shattered, and the pieces lie scattered everywhere and can never be put back together again. Some people fade, the things they once knew simply blurring into a distance that can't be regained. Others wake to the reality one day, like a last conscious thought, that the things that they once could control now control them...and some simply drown.
I know that everyone knows disappointments, heartbreak, the lonely hours...shame and embarrassment too. That's another of life's rules.
There's a point though where sometimes everything loses focus. Lines blur. Hearts fail. Dreams die.
At least sometimes. For some people.
There can be a place past feeling hollow and being numb. A dark place, for evil has it's garden too...and an entrance to it's tomb.
I know losing control. And blurring lines. And being controlled in the end...in a place where there are no pathways.
However, I don't know how to explain many things.
What explanation is there when things cease to be rational? When you lose control and wake up to the realization of being controlled and everything else spinning away from you. Away from view and there's nothing left to hold onto.
How do you explain that darkness is a weight too? It's a brand and a scar. And having touched it, always having the thought buried in the back of your mind, wondering some moments if you could ever go back there?
There are many places you can't go. The bridges are burned. Lives have moved on.
The way back to the light is twice as far. Twice as hard. Just an uphill climb and the things that held you down don't let go.
It's strange, that point in time when everything is laid bare. When there's only one thing left to lose besides your mind. It's like your a thought free floating and looking down on yourself...because there's no feeling left, just a choice. People make countless choices everyday, mostly without thinking. Here there's no direction. No way to turn, no right and wrong, only to be...do I want to BE. It's a surreal question for an irrational mind. There are no bridges to disconnect.
Sometimes we just fail in spite of abuse and accidents and last "conscious" decisions to end the pain...and we go on. We wake up somehow, somewhere and find we're still here. It's no longer a question of do I want to BE. You just ARE. Some cosmic chance has happened and you've been refused exit from the pain.
Some people don't take no for an answer.
Some people do.
There are miracles in hell, just as there's hell on earth.
It's strange to feel again. You've been so numb to pain to wake up to it again is almost like a new sensation. One that calls you back to the dark. That would take you back to that place. That choice.
They say many soldiers won't talk about combat but not every war takes place on a battlefield. And not many speak of this fight. Something always gets left behind in war. People never come back the same. It's not about coming back to love, beauty, and peace at first. It's just one more minute, one more hour, one more day.
And some day, somehow you see a single ray of sunlight in your wilderness again...
It's being accepted by someone again...after being no one to anyone for so long.
And accepting responsibility for your past.
Accepting responsibility for being.
And believing again, that there can be a future...
I'm without words.
Without comfort.
Without wisdom.
None the wiser..
He is gone.
He has gracefully departed.
I called him sweet and lovely.
I only hoped he knew I was sincere.
Dearest Liam,
please be at peace.
Your friend in the Deep,
Chloe
💜
Without comfort.
Without wisdom.
None the wiser..
He is gone.
He has gracefully departed.
I called him sweet and lovely.
I only hoped he knew I was sincere.
Dearest Liam,
please be at peace.
Your friend in the Deep,
Chloe
💜
