Automatism
seems to deny the
dancing polarity
of life and death
which is to deny
the unbearable
and precious secret
that life and death
are not two~~
"While the soul really lives, its deepest dread is perhaps the dread of automatism. For automatism in life is a forestalling of the death process."
— D.H. Lawrence
Free from the world’s stress,
Away from its nonsense and mess,
The mind is free from distress,
Nothing suppresses the soul’s access.
Free to embrace the light,
There are no tendrils of the night,
The pathway is radiant and bright,
This is the soul’s might.
Unbound by gloom,
Sunlight pervades the room,
Hope arises from the tomb,
There’s a forestalling of the approaching doom.
Unbound by the world’s perplexity,
The mind is out of the sea of complexity,
Gone to the flames is every enmity,
The carriage is a renewed entity.
One of the many secrets of life:
There is no true freedom.
Man is slave to his own ignorance
And to his own personal sense of reality.
This, in turn, leads to another secret:
The only true sin is ignorance.
All the sought-out and accepted teachings
Of priests and prophets,
Rabbis and theologians,
Imams and evangelicals
Are just rhetoric, empty words from hollow men
Purportedly meant to give
Comfort and order to Man's life,
But only succeed in burdening him
With a genuine and profound sense
Of undeserved guilt for sins he did not commit.
All the answers Man thinks
He learns from these teachings about life's secrets
Are merely vague, naïve assumptions
Based on unlistened to answers
To unanswered questions,
In his trite and pitiful attempt
To deal with the biggest secret of all…
The reality of death…
And coming, finally, to the inevitable conclusion
That there is no arguing with reality.
Author's note: There is no forestalling the inevitable moment, whenever it may come. The best that most of us can hope for is, that when it's our turn, we might possibly go saddened but not embittered.
I turned to my wife
With desire in my eyes
And my loins a little disjointed
Forestalling sin,
She asked with no grin,
¨Kind sir, do you have an appointment?¨
You'll need to make an appointment
If you wanna have a shot at love
I was having a chat
With a sweet bureaucrat
Whose curves nature had appointed
The moment seemed right
When up came the red light
And a billboard reading, ¨Make your appointment¨
In the future, you'll need an appointment
For love, for kindness, for care
Some justice of the peace
Will preside your release
Or decide on your fate of despair
In time we'll be damned
To a hostile land
Ruled by gods we ourselves anointed
Hey, you get what you give
So don't ---- where you live --
Or at least not without an appointment.
The lights have fallen
to nightbreak.
There, on the sharp horizon.
Cracked open.
Leaching
pastel peach...
(Or is it apricot?)
...into the dimming blue.
The moon,
two stars -
aligned,
in a line.
Three drops of rain;
frozen in their falling.
An overnight shower,
lasting longer than it did...
By the tiny grace
of an unseen spider;
her webwork
holding these three,
three pieces of rain -
up to the fading moonlight
as dawn conspires to interfere
with the colors she is daily born in.
The white brings blue.
The day brings night.
The night brings dew.
I long for you.
In the long days,
in the longer nights.
In the dark,
in the light.
If I’m lucky,
in my ache,
I’ll be suspended
for a moment more.
Between heaven.
Between earth.
Consumed by starlight.
Embracing dark, forestalling dawn.
Awash in moonlight.
After forestalling, the tree of life fell.
sending a sour apple straight to hell.
7/17/2018
Shaw’s Life or Death Epigram Contest
gallant voice whispers
perturbing tranquility
forestalling romance
2-19-2017
Man was once content to stay
uncomplicated and free.
For flowers bloomed every day
and fruit hung from vine and tree.
God tested the soul of Man
forestalling self-awareness.
And for an infinite span
Man lived with this unfairness.
Only if Man disobeyed
could He gain free will of thought.
And when Adam wasn't swayed
a woman's touch was sought.
Woman came into season
because God thinks in abstract.
And Eve gave birth to reason
though Man found sin in her act.
Man rose from ape to being
and found there was no way back.
For when God sent Man fleeing
there was no way to backtrack.
(Quatrain)
12/3/2015
MIDNIGHT
Dead center on the pendulum’s arc
arrows pointing straight into the air
the momentary still between breaths
silently separating the tick - - - tock.
Death and reincarnation - darkness
born again to night’s blindness
shielding its creatures
forestalling the creeping touch of light.
Midnight, sweet pinnacle of ebony's depth
ink blot moment of true peace
blackened hole - night’s transition.
John G. Lawless
11/10/2015
submitted to – Midnight – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Nathan D.
Pivotal Fall
Our Spring is so welcomed when Winter is done,
We long for rebirth under warm sun.
New growth of Spring will recall
Green, lush Summer sprawl.
Then with ease,
Fall
Paints the trees
Bright shades to enthrall,
Forestalling Winter’s drab pall
Of snow, sleet and ice…not so much fun…
Our Spring is so welcomed when Winter is done.
© Sandra M. Haight 2015
All Rights Reserved
~3rd Place~
Contest: An Invented Form: Help Me Name it
Sponsor: Andrea Dietrich
Judged: 02/23/2015
------------------------------------------------------
Syllables: 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11
Rhyme: a-a-b-b-c-b-c-b-b-a-a-
Suggested Form Title: Hourglass Rhyme
Collages diffuse vanilla vistas
such effulgence waltzing to violet tempos
though the forestalling of waterfalls
evolves into a gargantuan war
weapons whistle from the mountains
beatitudes of mirth shan’t ever be eradicated
sailing
free
building
clusters
of
sand
in the
desert
accretions
forestalling
time
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