Uncertainty and Other Poems

By Anthony Ward

Uncertainty

How can I be certain

That I’m making my wife stronger

Rather than making her weaker?

 

How can I be certain

That I’m raising my daughter’s self esteem

Rather than lowering it?

 

How can I be certain

That my writing’s constructive

As opposed to destructive?

 

How can I be certain

That I’m not spreading these lives too thinly

Or layering them on too thick?

 

How can I be certain that I’m doing the right thing

Even when I’m wrong?

Living with Death

One day death will dawn upon me

And relieve me of uncertainty,

Of that I am certain.

 

Though I don’t want to think of dying,

To think of what it’s like to die.

The more I wish death weren’t real,

The more real it becomes.

Making it harder for me to live.

Being mortified by my mortality.

 

Yet, from the moment we’re born we begin to die.

Closing in on death the further we live.

Each day we add becoming subtracted.

Each year we gain another lost.

Each step we take, taken from us.

 

But would life without death be worth living at all?

Is life not merely a shrine to death-

Death a shrine to life?

Would we not wish to die if we had to live indefinite?

Star-struck

Should we strive for immortality

At the expense of our lives?

Wanting to be in the minority

Before we end up the majority

Looking towards the heavens

While we trample our yield?

 

Should we aspire to the stars

As we sit in the dark

Hoping to escape our earthly problems

While forgetting about those closest

Sharing our space with awe?

Manifest

The presence of man’s manifest

In the simmering and smouldering trails of light

Where he’s marked his territory

Until the whole world’s as radiant as a star

Blinding anyone attempting to look into it.

 

Though it’s not until you look closer

That you see the festering anoplura

Expanding at such an exponential rate

Like a carcinogenic plague

Eating away its host

Until it’s no longer sustainable.

 

Exhausting our natural resources

Motivated by engines

Fuelled by fossilised trees

Releasing the carbon dioxide

They once retained

To smooth the industry that took a mere couple of centuries

To consume what had taken millions of years to produce.

The Best o’ Them

I’ve seen people get even,

With the odds set against them.

 

I’ve witnessed the best in people

Through the worst of times.

 

I’ve watched people change

While the world remained the same.

 

I saw people remain the same

As the world changed around them.

 

I’ve seen people stand up

While others sat it out.

 

I’ve heard people shout.

Whilst the rest whispered around them.

 

I’ve seen people starving,

Where others were hungry for more.

 

I’ve seen people reinvigorated,

At the end of the line.

 

I’ve seen people run,

When walking was fine.

 

I’ve seen people crawl

When they could have laid down.