How Will the Censure Fall?

Below is a selected poem from my poetry collection A Greater Sound By Far. These verses were initially published in Wide Awake Magazine (Volume 3, No. 1) and later reprinted in Ancient Paths (No. 3) prior to their publication in A Greater Sound By Far. If you like this poem and want to read my attempt at a sestina, click here.

I Was Not Told

Fated footsteps brought me to a passing party
As the moon began to fade beneath a cloud
Where voices echoed loud
Amid the pounding rhythms.

And there I felt the lacking
Override the mind, beset the head,
And the emptiness, the awful dread,
Once well-sung by J. Alfred.

Drawn in by surface laughter,
I joined the formless crowd
Where voices echoed loud
And I spoke to one,
With cosmetic conversation
And superficial scintillation.

Important words sprang to my tongue,
I swallowed each and every one.

Would it be worth the rising fear,
The hesitation, surmounted by the hope,
The glimmer, the chance to share,
If he, leaning upon his chair,
Should break into a spiteful sneer
And offer me another beer?

I swallowed, all went unsaid,
And Lazarus remained quite dead.

And back into his chair he sat,
And I smiled for awhile,
Until the moment passed.

And how will it lie on me,
How will the censure fall,
If on that final day,
When earth and sky both fade away,
Each could to the Just Judge say--
I was not told,
I was not told at all?