On Life as it Passes

I have been wanting to post for a while now, but the fates seem to be against me. Every time my fingers start itching to write, I am removed from internet access. Meanwhile, when I have access, I am usually busy doing something that is actually necessary. Well fate has finally taken a turn and afforded me an opportunity to do some writing.
I am in the midst of a May term class in philosophy. That means it is an entire semester's worth of philosophical questions and ponderings condensed into three short weeks. Normally, I probably would not think that the brief delving into a broad survey of the philosophical would be all that grueling. However, condensing all of those topics into three hours a day five days a week does make it rather challenging. It is also frustrating because we only have time to scratch the surface of so many immense issues. A lot of them have made me want to blog just so I could get my thoughts out. Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, blogging has not been easily facilitated, so all my thinking has gone unwritten. Ah well, it matters not. I am sure I will have other opportunities to wrack my brain about the meaning of life and then post it here. Hopefully it won't be in an eight part series again, but you never know.
On the other hand, it has also been a very good time for me poetically. I go through spells where I am not really pleased with many of my poems or I think them banal, trite, or just bad. Right now, however, I am going through a spell where I feel like I am writing some very good stuff, maybe the best I've written since I went to LA back in march. The only question now is which to post.
This one I wrote after hanging out with my friends Katy and Chester and my girlfriend, Hannah the night before Katy left for Texas for two months. It was a very cool and pleasant evening and seemed worthy of a bit of poetry.

Skyglow

We lay on the grass
To watch the stars
But it was a cool night
And clouds crept into the country
In the distance to the northwest
We couls see it
The ever present glow
Of the sleepless city lights
Like a great burning on the horizon
Filling the night air
With a lurid gleam
And the clouds
That came to watch us
Were all tinged with that dull orange
Looking hellishly contrived
Set against the deep blue heavens
The city lights came down on us
Like radioactive fallout
Desaturating all
So when we looked to the sky
We saw blindness
And hid ourselves under blankets
Trying to find the darkness
To reclaim the night
But knowing already
That it's lost

Obviously I'm not very keen on skyglow. Anyone who's read a lot of my poetry probably knows that I love the stars and hate fluorescent orange streetlights. Sure, their function is nice, but they are just obnoxious--especially when they block out the stars that I so love.
I'm going to post another one because...well...this is my blog, and I shall do with it as I please, and I like this poem, so I'm going to post it. And there's nothing you can do to stop me! Well, now that that overly dramatic power trip, here is a poem about something completely different.

Is This Why We Hold our Breath When We Pass?

The dead lie
In ordered rows
Side by side
Quiet.
Every one of them
Quiet.
Still.
Row after row
Of the dead
In the pale light
Of morning
It's chilling.
Quiet.
We pass by
And stonecut names
Stare back
Speaking
The only words left
For the dead
Quiet.