For Eugene O'Neill:

Amidst the solitary, noiseless wrack
Of penetrating perturbations, Life's
Distraught days... hours... minutes... wholly lack
The comfort of a Lover's Love -- or wife's.
But these cannot really comport with the
Battled peace-seeker's hopeful attainment
Of old long-lost dreams, never to be a
Verity -- dashed, though days and nights are spent.
Nirvana never voices such promise
In the womb's balm, only a short-lived hope
That makes the dark good, and solitude bliss,
The fall-out tragic, till death sans full rope.
From ashes to ashes and dust to dust?
No!  Hope to Hell and there to pen we must!
                                                                     (1989)