Friend

My friend I know
you'll read this not
yet pen and paper
will me on
I've thought, at length,
of late on you
your cheerful face
and rakish style
your choice of life and fate.

I'm told at times you
talked to cows
and danced in fields
and cried at rain
a poet's passion
lived in you
no compromise
for things askew

did you ,then, too
when but a boy
dream of ships
and open seas
of righting wrongs
and facing down
Armadas of the Tyranny.

with rapier wit
and cunning laugh
you cut a swathe
through "9 to 5"
unfettered by
convention's chains
young and free and
quite alive.

society, for shame;
it hates
its buccaneering youth
and would just make
us galley slaves till we're
long in the tooth
how gladly did
we go to arms to
fight to free our lives.
from others, knowing better;
Teachers, Priests, Policemen, Wives.

Yet one by one as
life went on
our dreams fell, lost
to the system's guns
and though they never
found their mark
on you,
they struck
the ones you loved.

So in the end
age caught us up
our brief rebellion floundered
They boarded us.
harsh truths their
troops, and viciously, they hounded
then offered up their
terms as such
"conform with no
alternative!" to
live land-locked
in working hell
to question not,
but to obey.
To vote,
But never have a say.

Then you
my buccaneering friend
smiled as the scene grew grim
and raised your flag
with green Doc's on
not waiting for the
coming tide
hoisted yourself
and sailed away
beyond the horizon of mortality.
 

Ragellion , age 28
Kuraby, Queensland, Australia