Flicker

I knew Larry since 

we were 5 years old

One of the most kind 

hearted people you 

will ever know.

You don’t think someone

like him could ever 

have his life extinguished 

in such a way

They did not know who 

they murdered, 

I tell myself

They did not know 

who they took from us.

They did not know of his 

life.

His wife, 

his beautiful children. 

How could they? blowing 

out the candle 

of such a gentle soul, 

so recklessly.

Reviews

[Marie Anzalone]

I recently read, then reread, Viktor Frankl's "A Man's Search for Meaning." In his mesmerizing and haunting passages of mesmerizing and haunting insights, one thought jumped out and half strangled me in particular:

That in the concentration camps, everyone knew that the ones who held onto the most of their humanity were the ones who went first. Who never made it. Those with compassion, empathy; the inability to close themselves to human suffering. They almost all died.

If there is a God and his/her/its opposite, my dark nights at 3 am are filled with thoughtsl like this: What if they do know? What if such targeting is intentional, of the best among us? What if these things happen precisely to rid of us poets, dreamers, visionaries, kind people?

What if that is exactly what the other side wants? Does that mean we all walk around with targets? Or worse- does it mean whoever we recognize as being far above us, has theirs?

[.]

~~ i'm sorry for your crushing loss... ~~ i lost a very precious friend in 2006... and i simply cannot comprehend why he was driven to his death... by our work-place supervisor... who was a tyrant... ~~ my friend was 24 at the time and was going to marry his childhood sweetheart in a few months... ~~ i went to a therapist who was supposed to help me grieve but he couldn't help me... simply because one cannot fathom such a loss... ~~ we just have to learn to live without answers... and the emptiness that such a loss brings... ~~ there are days when i cannot believe my friend is not alive any more...