The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Remorse

New no more 
are the men who stood by
as a lonely man made
excuses and left.

After a week of questioning
and concern, they cast me
to myself, my only farewell
a note of debt.

Those who may have cared
were silent and 
those who knew better
were speechless.

Painful it is to look
back upon a world that
has moved on without me,
without a care or word.

Our mission was divided,
then ended, and a dream died.

But to a happy end,
life never lies closed to
the living.

I ache
with the question of the cost
of a night when an embrace
turned everything away.

Cold reality is my only comfort
to know I am not alone and
can breathe with animal breath
unconstrained.

It is a larger world now,
and my church an open field.
My books will have to be written
for I shall never touch again
that life of prayerful ascete.
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©2009 Mark Daniel Milbocker  All rights reserved.