A lifetime passes
but she lives on, touchable now
only with mind-beams.
Walking through a cornfield together
seems like Elysium.
Imagination fills in the blanks,
her hand in mine
leads to a future memory.
That cornfield, that soft sunlight
it's all smolder and smoke now,
but she is invulnerable.
She has moved to a place
just ahead of my eyes.
I see her in new yellow robes
the dazzle of her,
waving
between the suns fading rays.
You are my strong man.
You never try to pursue glory or praise,
You don't run after mere appreciation or raise.
It is the invulnerable faith that lies inmost.
That you know it will keep you going.
Quietly and silently you keep on working and striving,
For the one whom you love and care the most.
Vulnerable
endangered unprotected
exsposed, unsafe, in peril
well protected resilient immune to
ungauarded prey susceptible
opened attacked
Invulnerable
12/19/24
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2024© from anthology "COGNISANT”
Free Verse: Vulnerability
Philosophically, and ideally,
I believe I should be myself,
Which makes me feel vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure.
Practically, and actually,
My philosophical ideal is eclipsed by fear.
So, I protect myself
By hiding my identity, or disguising it with a false identity
To feel safe, secure, and invulnerable.
But, what is my identity?
It's how I feel and act - now,
Not what I was was yesterday,
Not the story someone wrote for me,
Not what I plan or hope to be tomorrow,
Not what my driver's license or resume says.
It's how I feel and act - now.
There's my homework
Let my actions and outward expressions
Honor what I feel is right
Which is me -
Now.
Diamante: Vulnerability
Real -
Vulnerable, Unsafe
False - Safe, Invulnerable
I must be real -
What I feel
Is right -
Now
My dearest, possessing a divine pedigree,
You strive for impeccable integrity.
You shun evil to achieve absolute incorruptibility,
Wherein you will find total tranquility.
I watch as you aim for flawless righteousness,
Admiration grows as you disregard all timelessness.
When you reach for irreproachable honesty,
There is an air about you of complete modesty.
The ease of which it became convincible,
Was that true virtue can be invincible.
It will be invulnerable, what is attained,
And absolutely recoverable what is gained.
You acquire an aura of vestal security,
As your spirit takes on unassailable purity.
James 3 : Verses 17-18 Holy Bible.
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
I could be quicker to apologize
and more deeply reconsider
healthy and safe restitution
restoration
restoring right relationship
restorying win/win potential
resolutions
To become more integrally confessional
when I have lacked transparency
hidden by invulnerable
chauvinistic silence
Fearing to offend
on matters not deeply mattering
to me
but almost certainly significant
to this one before me
and/or those beyond me
who do care
However selfishly
needing to be heard
respected
Wanting to have control
over healthy
safe possibilities
truthful
potentially beautiful
where they have invested
Even though I may see
and hear their outcomes,
smell
and taste these same yields
touched
and felt too win/lose
zero sum infested
congested,
too hungrily ingested
injected
I would be quicker to apologize
reconsidering healthy and safe restitution
restoring right relationships
restorying win/win
cooperative
more inclusive
open
vulnerable
and yet resiliently resonant
robustly forgiving
co-invested
EarthTribal
resolutions.
A lifetime passes
but she lives on, touchable now
only with mind-beams.
Walking through a cornfield together
seems like Elysium.
Imagination fills in the blanks,
her hand in mine
leads to a future memory.
That cornfield, that soft sunlight
its all smolder and smoke now,
but she is invulnerable.
She has moved to a place
just ahead of my eyes.
I see her in new yellow robes;
the dazzle of her,
waving
between the suns fading rays.
You can go anywhere as someone else,
the masks and jesters play
invisible to sound and touch
the Lords and Creatures pray
To rent the future—sell the past,
the landlord still unnamed
invulnerable to what they sell
the real prize still unclaimed
To cry out once your voice reversed
lone echo at your back
the Landed Gentry comes and goes
—the crossroads blackest cat
(The New Room: April, 2022)
I miss that invulnerable energy.
That allowed me to expel-
An incredible curiosity.
That I hadn’t experienced since I was a child.
I miss that hopeful instinct.
That told me of an unlocked revelation.
That I am willing to engage in wrath for.
The wrath of the ones who are surrounding me.
They will testify that-
I am the one who is a devastation.
To the peace that was once society.
The dead move among us
looking for where we were.
Only occasionally
do time lines connect.
My dead dog
still sticks her wet nose in my ear
when I in my troubled sleep she visits,
but she is not there. she is off
tracking a ghost
twenty years before this man I am now.
Today I am on the doorstep of
of a Thai restaurant - I think I once lived in Thailand,
but it could have been this other person,
a younger one
who walked through time as if invulnerable.
I enter, order a meal in a language
I thought I had used up and put away.
Now I visit the words again,
yet even words forget
how I once spoke.
Bells ring through the dusk, soft and low.
Smokey eyes narrow.
Sultry pout on her lips.
Wrapped in black lace and chiffon,
she twirls in graceful circles.
Violin strums through the twilight, soft and low.
Black-shaded eyes dart.
Lips part ever so slightly.
Silver feathers cascade from her hair.
Arms open to the onyx sky.
Witchy apparition
that used to be a lady
sways on.
Breezy is the eve, song murmurs
from the deep.
A man in a fedora with a smooth walking stick
sees her through the looking glass,
reaches out.
Fingers slip through a reviled hallucination.
She morphs into a silken raven.
Head bowed in supplication,
he is besieged by an invulnerable force.
He refuses to abjure his hope that he can hold her.
A tambourine jingles lightly in her hand, soft and low.
She twirls away.
A disintegrated mirage.
Tear slides from his eye.
The music disappears.
Blinded by his sorrow,
he walks away from the glass, now stained.
Your love is so mighty, it slays us all
Feels like my face is bein' shoved into a wall
It's like bein' driven right off a steep hill
No one's any match for your invulnerable will
Your love kills (2x)
On the battlefield of relationships,
You've got the trigger within your grip
Nothin' will stop you from taking that hill
You're commander-in-chief of a love that kills
A love so strong,
It can hardly be managed
While all around you
Feel the collateral damage
In the house of fear that quivers and shakes,
There's no extra room for the space your heart takes
The deed is paid but there's always a bill
We inherit the debt of a love that kills
Your love kills (4x)
Now that the fun's been taken out of it --
You tell us where to stand and explain just how to sit
And you've got us all waiting near the windowsill
For the first ground burst of a love that kills
That air raid siren weren't no drill
That was the death knell of love that kills
What kind of horrible thoughts
run through fogged brains
when they lay down to sleep
and instead of sleeping, they begin to weep?
What kind of humble thoughts
and serene feelings shunning worries
enter the peaceful mind of a meek
when he prays and suddenly falls asleep?
What kind of glorious dreams
does one perceive when an image appears?
Would he stick to the imagination and continue to dream?
Would he suddenly awake in sweat and emit a loud scream?
What kind of exhilarating emotions
make us delusional when joy strikes us
assuming we're invulnerable to sorrows and frights
that will follow tragic events poking a hole into these cynical hearts?
I am in this place and you are in that.
The living visit the dead
but the dead move among us
looking for where we were.
Only occasionally
do our time lines connect,
and only if you count disconnection
as a sign of previous contact.
My dead dog
still sticks her wet nose in my ear
when I, in my troubled sleep visit her,
but she is not there. she is off
tracking a ghost
twenty years before.
Same goes for a Siamese cat
and a Malay girl.
There was a loving place once.
The cat now hunts small lizards
in a land we have named ‘yesterday’,
the girl has long ceased planting flowers
on a graveyard of hope.
Today I am on the doorstep of
of a Thai restaurant - I think I once lived in Thailand,
but it could have been this other person,
a younger man
who walked through time as if invulnerable.
I enter, order a meal in a language
I thought I had used up and put away.
Now I visit the words again,
yet even words forget how I once spoke.
no foothold
by Michael R. Burch
there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.
so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,
as far as the i can see ...
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