The Bell That Tolls — A Poem of Human Failings

 

The Bell That Tolls

In the depths, in the dark,
in the smoke and in the fire‑glow,
the dragging shuffle of feet,
first the few, and then the many,
descend.

Deep and down,
the bell‑toll sounds,
marking the hour of the everlast.

Here it speaks to the doom of men:
that they forget—
that they neglect, and so cease to reflect,
that the darkness binds more tightly than the light.

No erudite voices rise.
Only the noise,
loud in the mind’s own suffocating quiet:
incoherent, the guttural mimicking echoes,
of a hive‑like mind, the mob made one,
together in their regressing memory.

Times of plenty lie to all;
within them kingdoms rise and fall.
Societies grow, then wither away into yesterday,
and the fall is always long… and ignoble.

Stygian pasts in the sunlit shadows wait,
ready to become again and again,
unless remembered,
unless guarded against carefully.

The children of man, ignorant,
only knowing what they have been told,
the truths hidden away in banished tomes,
the doom their elders called down upon themselves,
and on their progeny,
that inheritance — the consequence
of the light of knowledge… withheld.

For darkness always returns.
Always returns to man,
when they forget,
and when they withhold.

The persona does not dwell in the light.
It dwells in the inward dark,
and must be lit by knowledge,
by thought,
by remembering—
for without that light,
it forgets —
and in that deep where the psyche hides itself,
when forgetting has hollowed it thin and frail,
the bell tolls again —
a sound drawn from within,
the repudiation of a mind
that returned itself to its dark design
by neglect,
and by forgetting.

And so the bell tolls once again the doom of man,
through the darkened caverns of the intellect,
down into the sewers of the mind
where disremembering becomes decay,
its stench rising to dismay,
ignorance and darkness — the price that’s paid,
into the hour of everlast —
the hour of the toll that men forget.

Copyright May 2026 M. W. Van Dyke
All Rights Reserved

The Caregiver, Uncounted — A Poem

 

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The Caregiver, Uncounted

We live in the shade.
We live in the quiet.
We live in the mundane and rarely eventful —
or so it appears to those outside,
witnessed from a distance, not within.
Distance is the qualifier of our lives.

Isolated, forgotten, ignored.
Discreetly, with no ill‑intention.
Simply there, unconsidered.

What they do not see, we still must carry.
What they do not hear, we still must feel.

The noise no one else hears.
The sound no one else notices.
The sleepless hours no one counts.
The pain beneath our words no one heeds —
not even ourselves, at times.

We, who speak in absolutes,
are minimized by those who trivialize and amplify.
We do not exaggerate. We do not inflate.
But to the daily embellishers,
we look the same.
Those outside never hear the truths of inside.

We are haunted behind our eyes,
carrying the reality of our daily lives.

Only the indispensable sleep lightly.
Peace of mind is a luxury of the unburdened.

This is the price of that imagined quiet,
paid by those who cannot look away,
and cannot make a stranger of one who was once beloved,
and, oftentimes, still is — a stranger, though they may now be.

Copyright April 2026 M. W. Van Dyke
All Rights Reserved

The Professional Malcontent — A Poem

 

The Professional Malcontent

The professional malcontent,
always sneering at creations they have not conceived,
at that which they have not themselves wrought,
purposefully ignorant of their own insufficiencies and “good enoughs.”
They find fault with everything and anything when others are the ones who are doing.
They are ill content with what they do not control.
If five people say yes, they will be the one to say no.

They will add a dash of salt to a pot of stew,
as if that would change the flavor or the chemistry,
hours in, after the real work is done,
and then claim part ownership of it all,
a success claimed with theatrical flourish.

Undaunted in their own private geometry,
they are oblivious to the shallowness of their own depths.
Even the abstract eludes them,
for they would not have done it that way.
Their self‑worth is defined by the perceived failures of others,
and the imagined successes of their own redesigns—
usually flavorless, colorless alterations.

It is the self‑interest of the uninteresting,
inventing flaws where none exist,
so they may stand inside the substantive,
a territory they cannot recognize.
They do not create; they criticize.

The perfection, or adequacy, they demand of others
they never require from themselves.

The distasteful aroma only they can smell
comes not from the stew, but from within themselves.
They call out flaws and imperfections only they perceive,
while others offer praise and share in camaraderie—
giving credit where it is due,
where it is owed,
and sometimes grudgingly to the “me too”
with an eye‑roll cast from behind.
It is nothing more than the half‑penny arcade of the mind.

The professional malcontent clutches that coin tight,
held in both hands against their heaving breast,
not knowing it has no real value—
nothing more than a token written on parchment.
They are content…
only when they are not.

Copyright March 2026 M. W. Van Dyke
All Rights Reserved