Best Selves Poems
I've been wondering about our secret selves...
The vegetarian smoker
The introverted joker
The soldier with the peace sign
The anonymous byline
The accountant with unfinished sums
The deaf musician's steel drums
The blue collar millionaires
The conservative who dares
The scientist who prays
The vagabond who stays
The man who kneels to take a stand
The female poet who's a football fan
We are all more than we seem...
12/26/18
Submitted to 'Honourable Mentions Worth Mentioning' contest
Sponsor: Richard Lamoureux
(I like playing with the idea of secret identities, which started me thinking of how everyone is both Clark Kent and Superman, we all have a face we show and a face more private and unseen-)
Adrift in sweet reverie while composing my journal
I sense myself wandering streets in solemn austerity
'Tis such a blunt shift from my usual musings nocturnal
To what do I owe this odd disturbing disparity?
In this vision I plod narrow alleys austere
A familiar dream within I-him I'm now aware
Presently it has become abundantly clear
We are one, he and I, as our souls we bare
In a flash the scene shifts to daybreak vernal and bright
In calm balmy bliss on guitar Bassa nova I-he strum
Dark angry clouds lift, azure clouds gleam bright
from whence have these diverse me phantoms come?
With a will I submit to my encyclopedia self
as inner projection reveals the multitudes I contain
Much more engaging than the one-I volume gathering dust on the shelf
My enigmatic space-time selves shall always remain
why is it I never in my life gave cadence as to critic another poets work
yet they find it perfectly acceptable to rate my own submissions
they aren't Jesus they don't walk on water so why should I bother with them
some are intellectualized wandering wizards others need attention like a baby
there I gave you your treat so wander back to your warm spot and shut your mouths
it doesn't help me when you crtic it just makes me think of what a perfect ass you are
going off someone cause of stupid grammattical errors we can't take it with us when we die
they themselves are mister perfect never doing anything wrong
see positive enforcement strengthens the heart where as negativity brings you down
plus who are they anyways:
Stay optimistic, even if you're
facing a set back. There are
many stages we go through in
our lives, but we manage, to get
back, on track. All good things
are possible, if you have
confidence in yourself and do as
much as you can. No one has
accomplished anything, in one day,
there has to be, a plan! Establishing
a routine, takes time, but it can lead
to many big opportunities, down the
road. At this point, you're bound to
find a way, to unburden, your heavy
load!
Let the good times outshine the bad times
Let the laughter drown out the tears
Let the light chase away the darkness including all your fears...
Turn your pain into strength and smile for you are alive, making all things possible but only possible if you try.
The critic is the frustrated wannabe who picks at others to compensate for his insecurities and to boost his delusions of grandeur. Most are moderately adequate poets at best and find it pleasurable to take it out on those who have some talent….Leave them on the “ignore” shelf.
keep eyes on egg selves
how chicks grow in morning sun
a peck of wise hearts
two very old selves lived in an very old house
and on one day self one turned to self two and said
“I love you”
self two didn’t even nod its head
“did you hear me? self one then said
“what?” asked self two now seeing self one
“I said did you hear me”
“what my dear”
I said “did you hear me”
said self one now hopping up and down and pulling its hair
“I can’t hear you dear you shall have to speak up” said self two
and then self one grabbed self two and speaking right into self two’s ear said
“I love you”
“Oh that’s nice” said self two
“I love you too”
I'm wondering about our secret selves -
The vegetarian smoker
The isolationist who speaks Cantonese
The soldier with the peace sign
The blue collar millionaires
The conservative who dares
The scientist who prays
The vagabond who stays
There's more to all of us than what we seem
To soothe the cornered inferno
Consuming a sanctuary abandoned
Spider's silk like snow kissed ground
Walls caressed by a nurturing moss,
A mausoleum of birth
The detached ruins we carry
A firefighter's hose spouts curses
To cauterize a ghastly flame
The fire fights itself separately
So the lever pullers on the dispatch
Call into the ears of a healer
To douse themselves in gasoline
There is no pain, for in
Recognition there is warmth
The exiles of the charred asylum
Need something true to human heart
An acknowledgment of all their parts
All the poets,
back to God,
the creator of the world,
heaven and the sun.
Fire is coming,
any time, any day!
but it needs us all,
to change the way
we behave.
It's difficult to accept,
but preparing our hearts,
it's something great,
and useful in the world.
All my friends,
including Carol Brown,
this is good news,
and a reward from God,
that helps the wise,
to over come the world.
Tell all the poets,
including sister Rose,
Amanda and Santiago,
that perishing it's bad,
and really a curse!
We can't harvest the world,
instead to harvest us,
day and night,
and others end in hell.
Oh! i beg all the world,
including our mums,
the pagans and believers,
to fight very hard,
to win satan's name,
the enemy of man,
from Adam and Eve.
The Transparency of Selves.
Transparently unseen,
lonely souls walking on,
slipping between raindrops,
curling between folds of reality,
twisting in dreary, worn-out skins.
Moulting, peeling off, discarding,
worn-down corpses edging towards,
whistling crowds of leering stares,
wasted on insipid momentary sighs,
where collective consciences lay mute.
Opaque words flounder, seeking, begging,
wooden excuses swept up in dusty screams,
bellowing unspoken profanities in solitude,
sweltering amongst boneless patriarchs,
where impotence teeters on the brink of reason.
Rivers of unreason roll on, ceaselessly,
watering the sordid thoughts and empty voices,
filtering out warmth and empathy, drilling,
deeper into a callousness that embraces,
coddles, nourishing nothing but putrid decay.
My true nature, I’m told, I must seek.
I’ve been daft, I’ve been bold, I’ve been meek.
I’ve been angry and slow.
I’ve been high; I’ve been low.
So my "self-seeking" prospects are bleak.
...No longer could they blame it on others,
or chock it all up to society,
their losses, their failings, due to their choices,
a hard truth, and many were not ready.
Some would see what parallel selves had done,
then find a gun, take a handful of pills,
others would set out to remake their lives,
convinced it was all a question of will.
Most of those too would eventually fail,
and join the others in departing this world,
people found loved ones lying in their homes,
deprived forever of their precious pearls.
I myself lost an aunt who had seen
a parallel self was a CEO.
She was a stock clerk, the sight hurt so much
that from this life, by her hand, she did go.
A cousin of mine is, somehow, still alive,
though so depressed he might as well be dead,
after seeing a life with the little boy
his ex-girlfriend in college aborted.
I guess I am one of those people too,
as I struggle with it every day,
versions of me, successful and happy,
writing best-sellers, blazing my own way.
In the end so many people had died
that the technology was seen as bad,
government banned it to stop the bleeding,
but that cat can’t be put back in the bag.
It’s estimated twenty-two percent
of my Earth’s populations is deceased,
nearly two billion, dead by their own hands,
thanks to the ‘wonders’ of technology.
The dyings have slowed, but they still occur,
it proliferates though black-market tech.
Hell, I am breaking those very same laws,
warning you about how our world was wrecked!
But seeing where you are in your research,
I feared that you were running out of time,
and even a small glimpse of the multiverse
is more than enough to destroy your mind.
Don’t do it.
Here is an introduction to my poem:
Senator Cruz of Texas was using the
word cogent in the news recently.
People are taking pictures of themselves
and calling them selfies. I combined
these two items together and wrote
this poem. Here goes.
Around for a while we all would scout
Trying to find out what is was about;
When we arrived found a lot of shelves
With pictures people took of themselves.
Was it ludicrous what we seemed to miss?
Or instead of a selfy, showed up selfless
Trying to think we might be mystical
Some even said we had been egotistical?
Incredibly, you continue to say cogent
Never knowing what it may have meant
Before whole world soon came to an end
Great picture of me to you intend to send.
James Thomas Horn
www.poetrysoup.com
PS.
May have to add Selfies
and selfy to my dictionary.
When the sky opened wide
God gave me a special gift
He gave me something unvalued
With the sky, with the earth
Or even our own selves
Gold & pearls wouldn’t pay this
Treasure &hunting aint compared
God gave me something to live
Something which will never be payed by money
She‘s the world when she smiles
She owns the earth when she laughs
Her eyes are diamonds
Her love is the sky
Getting her sad will cause the world to lose its sense
Making her cry kills all humanity
God don’t keep this gift away from me
Because…….
You’re the one that makes her live!!!
Don’t let the darkness sink in
Within a blaze of pain and of fire
You will be ridiculed
You feel how we feel
Hot and yet unbearably cold
With limited sense of remorse
No-one will arrive
You are your own messiah
You are your own
You yourself are your own judge
Your own jury
You are complacent
Yet you do not know what it means
You are the mask I wear
I fake envisionment
I fake the trust I put,
Within you
Believe in myself I say
Trust within yourself,
They say!
Do not give in
Within yourself is your own path
Is your own sustenance
Believe in no one
Yet they beg for yours
Do not give in
You are worth,
MORE!!!!
Folding in to convention
Sealed in creases of acceptance
Maligned and misled
By the false promises
Of a stolen heart
We chase the white whale
Of validation
Into waters of denial…
“Fury—the rallying cry
of our vengeful spirit
Hate—the jilted lover
of our fated selves”
(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)