​Empty Skull, Empty Life, by Jeral Williams

Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1886

​Empty Skull, Empty Life
 
Without God
we are but animals in a complex zoo
with infinite invisible walls
and Byzantine keepers.

I think therefore I am.
If there is no God, I am is all,
I am dies with me,
and the Galapagos turtles
sing Darwin’s Anthem:
move slow, live long, stay fit.

As Kafka writes and Camus dies
everyone moves up one position,
the fat lady sings a dirge,
Dali’s skulls fight wars 
and Van Gogh’s skull puffs on.

Some find satisfaction in no God
I feel the Heart of Darkness
touch Nietzsche’s power
scream with Munch
feel Gyorgy’s melancholy.

All who wander the forest of mere existence,
abandon hope, eat, drink, fornicate,
for tomorrow you may die
and existence dies with you.

The ants and worms dine
the embers dim to ash
the naked skull
with vacant eyes sees nothing.

Jeral Williams

Jeral Williams is a retired psychology professor and late-in-life poet. His first book of poetry, Sunset Without Dawn (Negative Capability Press, 2022), was centered on his grief over the tragic loss of his daughter. Although quite happy and occasionally ornery, a portion of his work explores many of the hidden, infrequently discussed features of the human condition with which we wrestle every day. The privilege of old age has sharpened his focus on the realities he ignored in his youth.