Truth, like milk, arrives in the dark
But even so, wise dogs don’t bark.
Only mongrels make it hard
For the milkman to come up the yard.
~Christopher Morley, Dogs Don’t Bark at the Milkman
American journalist & writer Christopher Morley with American publisher & writer Mitchell Kennerley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like a river
it’s all just one-way
around the bend, they say
just another lap down the whipple-waves
of human faces, frothing
for a pound of flesh
mermaids
with claws more like
singing out the sounds of life
the lurid lure into the deepest depths
humanity always spoils before
shorelines are an issue
no, ser not me
you’ll not drink the soul
but every protest comes half-hearted
the waves, once seen, always longed for
by child-mind, learned not learning
that the whispers really hide
men’s shapes.
There is a childhood dream,
begun and ended on an actor’s note—
that hope of independence played upon a stage,
oft slain on the broken back of mortality’s rage;
we tell ourselves the masks new lives wrote,
but we’re all just variations on a theme.
Affirmation of the Day: Lies are what we tell ourselves in the mirror at night. Truth is the mirror’s reply.
Will to power. Willpower. Do I have the will to achieve power? You must be the change you wish to see in the world. It would be hypocritical to have it any other way, yet the hypocritical is what we excel at. I should know. I’m just as human as anyone else.
It may be true, but can the truth be handled? The truth always has the potential for deeper harm than lies. Lies can be dismissed. Yet the truth, once known–inescapable, all-encompassing. Man comes to the crossroads: do I have the will? I have the longing–the dream, he thinks, but the will, well, I could say yes and the world would never be the wiser, I could say yes but I do think I would be lying. I would know that I was lying, even if the world doesn’t know.
History, after all, points to the contrary.
Man stands longing at the crossroads, mired in the wait, for a lack of perseverance to press forward. The easiest path is often the path that leads nowhere at all–the circular trail to nowhere.
I depend on my perceptions of reality–on the pre-conceived boundaries as set by society. Dwelling on this issue, no matter–trying to come to terms. I really on the work of others. I profess independence, yet I hide amidst the foundations of cozy uniformity. Go with the flow. Don’t think too hard, it will come in time.
Waiting, what is with all the waiting? Man can but shake his head.
Good things come to those who wait.
How cruel is that? Untrue as well–the world must be moved, and someone must take the courage to move it. So it always goes. The waiting is merely waiting for someone else to do what you might have done. Such a notion! Surely man recoils at the insinuation. Yet reality looms: I call myself free, he whispers, yet I am content to submissive docility, waiting for the changes I wish to see, writing about them, idolizing them, but never once myself for the doing.
Waiting on the world to change. Still waiting. As the song says, one day this generation is going to rule the population…and what changes?
The ultimate question put before man at that crossroads comes not long after this thought: am I weak, than? Is it a factor of strength and weakness, or do some people simply have this capability–this fortitude for change–and others inherently don’t?
All answers lie in the self. But how does one strengthen the self? Through will. How does one strengthen their will, their resolve? A much more difficult prospect altogether. The first step to believing, after all, is having the will to do so.
No dream may suffice
in lieu of waking glances.
Still life holds love destitute,
such that dreams become vision,
the lie on which heart relies.
* Oh I do so loathe my stomach, at times, for all its troubles.
Forgive this poet’s absence this evening. The above is my submission for One Stop Poetry, and it may not be my best work, but it was produced under a day of food poisoning…which consequently is the same reason you may detect a noticeable disappearing act from me tonight. I’ll likely read as I can, but I’ve been keeping quite to bed today, and given how my stomach’s still acting, I don’t foresee that changing shortly.
Photo by Sean McCormick.
It is a rush—world—
Nothing holds not still above the
Colored creations of memory.
Years in the making the foundations
Sound and solid arise yet
Time bleeds into the framework,
The tumble of tumultuous tints tingeing like
Rainbows bursts of blown out washers –
We don’t forget, but the lines they
Blush against the battery of luminescent life –
We color detail till it all seems dreams,
And the world it circles and it sighs
And we’re rolling in the dyes of little lies
Watching change day by day.
Just beware of
Over-saturation.
* My submission to the latest One Shoot Sunday Photo Prompt, with that lovely barn/grainery shot provided by one Sean McCormick, a Canadian Photographer that is the focus of my latest interview for One Stop. Great guy, with some truly stunning nature photography…it absolutely breathes with life, history, and all the shadows of memories gone before. Have a look when you get the chance, and check out all the other poets inspired by the prompt!
Divinity in a smile
These eyes, like stars alight
To stoke the fires of this passionate
Elation, embrace of thought
That tickles yet the nervous breath
Coiling through the nerves—
Sensory serendipity.
-
Watching this Mirage
Deception of romance
Serpentine coils of medusan gaze
Wrapping around this memory
Of a man, once knowing
These lines, unrestricted,
Entwining about his heart.
-
The portrait and the face
Smiling through the frown
Of this imaginary madness
We’ve come to call a life
Will this define
Or refine
Your perception of meaning?
-
What dreams we greet
To hide the nightmare
Of reality.
Photo by Chris Galford
The fire dips beneath the azure sea;
All eyes turn to their own hands.
No one spies the serpents slithering
From the long stretched shadows
Of a garden ripe with glistening fruit.
Demons whisper in the peoples’ ears—
The straw cast down,
The crows descend.
Fruit rots and garden fades—
Ravens circle high above
The corpses of the fools.
Old men stir within their ancient tombs—
The dream is dead,
Another Rome, decayed.
-
Set me off into the Black
far beyond the stars
set me off into the Wild
far beyond the wilderness.
Set me free of mortal hearts
and weighted thoughts,
so low, so low,
and break these chains that
bind me to this coil—
what life,
what prison
now is this?
Press the suit and
straighten up that tie,
you are a man, it says
but you are just a boy
playing at a world of
mysterium and drama that has
devoided itself of plot.
-
There is a key
to thee and thine and mine,
and nestled just behind that door
is freedom yet incarnate.
In a breath, breathe—
so few have ever tasted
the freshness of the air—
recycled reconfigurations of reality—
that will be your paycheck please—
and this feeling is not falsified,
unbound, unguarded it yearns
for the taking—just breathe—
and feel the air,
feels, felt, feeling
this momentary being—
all I want is to breathe
and to feel, yet to be,
to stretch beyond perception
and feel the days beyond
that calendar—no shifts scheduled here.
-
No vacancy,
sincerest apologies
this mind is mine and yet
one waits beyond, yet yours—
this mirror of a soul you grasp
what a reflection is it not?
There is the dawning,
the rain is falling down
and through the swirl of purple haze,
these diamonds dribble through the
emerald leaves, like tiny lovers—
in your caress, this breath unbidden
slithers through my chest
and down into my roots—
I am born again, stretching
for the clouds.
Air, give me air,
Prayer and dream and reverie
are forever in the field—
give me space to work.
My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
He walked among these shadows
in brightest day unseen–
such smiles do well enough
to put pursuers off.
Look like them,
they don’t know you if your skin
does not differ in its shade.
Each day, a mask
identity is wearing
it’s getting old and getting fast
but every day is one more
challenge for the lies.
Twist it, turn it, toss it all about–
a lie is but another word
when cast into the wind.
If they do not have the sense to see
then he has every right to be.
Crocodile tears
as the pendulum swings–
his time will one day come
but one day is another day
and Time
all too relative
to a life that never was
and ever has been.
