COPLA UNO: This Bad Guy World - in all seriousness
[The entire sequence of 114 coplas: “This Bad Guy World”, dedicated to Jorge MANRIQUE, 1440?-1479. I give here in translation his third “copla à pied quebrado” in Arte Menor metre:
“Coplas a la muerte de su padre” (Coplas on the death of his father) -
Our lives are like rivers
that empty into the sea
……..where we expire:
There the lordly peers
come to their final spree
……..and no more transpire;
There gushing rivers swell
and others less imposing
……..and the rivulets
All arrive at the same sea level
those who toil with hands living
……..and the fortunates
Translated, December 2013, Paris by T. Wignesan
Some say the twelfth of never is an awfully long time
Like infinity multiplied many times over by infinity
How long it takes to find just the appropriate rhyme
When my oldest son will establish a solid identity.
A young lad, like me, longed for Christmas in May
Wondered if his school days would ever come to an end,
The nine months our parents waited for our birthing day
How long it will take for a festering family rift to mend.
The twelfth of never is an awfully long time, I suppose
Stretching beyond the measures of time and space
So, in all seriousness, with permission may I propose
That we practice patience and greet every day with grace.
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Written on November 24, 2020
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Freedom, what a commodity to be remiss
Ignorance is truly a bliss
There are too many of us who fear the death kiss
It causes irrational thinking, common sense dismissed
Our flesh is only temporary in all seriousness
Injustice should make everyone furious
Currently, in a state of oblivious
Unfathomable of how some people are viciously villainous
Elevate our vibrations and rise above foolishness
The Dogon tribe told us about that other star Sirius
If only I could travel back in time to Kemet and learn
Mathematics like Pythagoras
I’d change life equations and make the world glorious
Way too many hidden truths, all so mysterious
My mind stays suspiciously curious
Destined to seek prosperity and righteousness
Straying away from arrogance unlike Odysseus
Holistically healing the sick with the stroke of my pen
Emulating the Goddess Isis
All is Mind will eventually become notorious
Until our freedom is fully unveiled, I remain vociferous
You ask me in all seriousness if I will love you always.
What kind of question is that? Really, what kind of question is that?
I can’t see past this second, the tip of my nose or the next
feminine hygiene commercial. Ask me a question I can answer
with the pride of certainty. Give me a fighting chance to look
smart. Don’t force me to be mystical and all knowing.
Someone else has that job – I think you know him.
Ask me something that I can wrap my response around
like smooth, thick, sweet honey. After all, this is real life –
not the last thirty seconds of Days of our Lives.
Ask me why your smile is like free medicine. Ask me
why the beating of your heart helps me get to sleep at night.
Ask me why – with enough hot sauce – your scrambled
eggs are becoming a favorite meal.
You ask me in all seriousness if I will love you always.
What kind of question is that? Really, What kind
of question is that?
Rondelet: Bad Guy Dope*
See what I said
Head strong arm strong ham-strung bike dope
See what I said
Training ground's where villains are bred
Good guys strain up Sisyphus slope
Bad guys dope down Paris and mope
See what I said
*Please see poem posted on December 31, 2012, titled:
"This Bad Guy World (in all seriousness)"
(c) T. Wignesan, Paris, 2013
COPLA ONE: This Bad Guy World
(in all seriousness)
If this world has a true purpose
I’m sure it’s as a training ground
For the villain;
The good guys play hare to disclose
The great skill of the bad guys’ hound
For a good ol’ run;
The good guys of course bear the brunt
Of being stuck under the knee
Of bad guys’ jinn;
While bad guys get the fun to shunt
Good guys up the sooty chimney
Down boot black bin.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2012
June 6, 2012
You make me feel so low sometimes
And you wonder why I turn to others
You cling onto me jokingly
But in all seriousness, it bothers
I wish we can just be honestly close
Not just close, but able to click
Instead you act like a prick
It hurts to say the way I feel
Because I know you are so much more than what surfaces
I love you, I really do
But sometimes you make me feel like a fool
Like you’re using me
And I am not an adequate tool
I overlook the things you say and do
Just so I can make you happy
And that is sometimes a difficult task
Because the aching of inadequacy in my brain
Is driving me insane
I know I point out the obvious
I know that I’m stupid…I know I’m a fool
But why do you have to be so cruel?
Is this how it will always be?
And why can’t I cling elsewhere?
Without you hurt?
I can’t live my entire life making you happy
We all want to be content
I can’t leave the others behind
Sometimes I feel like you’re bent
On just you and me…
Or maybe it’s not me at all
Maybe it was never me…
I guess I overlook things too much to see
"Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me.
He pays the whole, and yet I am not free."
Wm. Shakespeare
Loving you, my tears fell
in that fast-food Miami restaurant
after we had the news your sturdy heart
was failing. "A matter of time,"
they said, locking you into the check-
out line. "I'll pitch a pup tent on
the other side of the river,"
you said in all seriousness, "and
I'll wait for you." Fool that I
was, I bought it.
To be happy
or to convince that in reality, it’s unhappy your searching for
grabbing those innocent hearts, the innocence
that lingers throughout the days and then,
gone. gone.
and there’s nothing left but the emptiness, the longing for what was lost
and now that it’s lost,
there’s anger and so much more anger
such agitation is driving deep into the brain, drilling a hole,
where only lies pour in,
the lies of the unspoken,
who once did not speak, but now,
all are words.
Those lies unfold past emotions, emotions
that took place silently,
emotions that tried to destroy the happiness
and only destroying the one whos being destroyed,
painfully
slowly.
No more happiness,
no more of that all around love security,
it’s almost as though the heart
is molded,
frozen in the sun,
unaware to move out of the fire
because of all the stupid, stupid lies
which do in all seriousness come from truth,
the lies which seem misunderstood have a meaning,
have a home,
but their home doesn’t know any other heart,
it only knows their own.
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