Depression taught me a strange religion.
Its god was absence.
Its prayers were unanswered questions.
Its sacred text
was written in all the things
I could no longer feel.
Anxiety became the high priest,
translating silence into prophecy.
Every shadow a warning.
Every pause a judgment.
Every tomorrow
already carrying the memory
of its own collapse.
Together they built a universe
where meaning orbited doubt,
and doubt devoured meaning,
a black hole feeding upon itself.
I stood at the event horizon,
watching pieces of myself
cross over.
Dreams first.
Then certainty.
Then the simple belief
that I would survive becoming me.
Yet something remained.
Not hope.
Hope was too visible.
Something smaller.
A witness hidden beneath the wreckage,
counting the stars
the darkness forgot to swallow.
Blot that once covered the East with blood
Inscribed scars and marks on walls and
grounds like dark cloud
Gongs of pains and sufferings that made history
Relics of cold bones and tragic memory
End of Second War that changed its course
Deeds of fettled people with great pride and honor
Destiny of united generations of undaunted force
Orbited with gold and leis of valor
The glorious symbol of big red dot on white and purified cloth
Obedience makes you a good citizen.
Clear conscience does better than a group of dozen.
(Prosebite)
He thought he was a star
When he got a little fame
"Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes came."
As he flickered in illusion's jar
Many women flocked to his starry glow
As his wife played second fiddle
Then his lovers solved the riddle
And that was the end of the show
He was just a firefly in fame's vast universe
and of course, it showed
His star began to implode
As it orbited in reverse
Soon that star will fall from the sky
For stardom is a fickle game
You can watch those fifteen minutes of fame
Burning up as it goes by
He saw her in a crowded room
And right away his love did bloom
But love is wont to be a two-way street
On lonely highways, two hearts never meet
and so he loves her from afar
she, the luster of his elusive star
Radiant Venus saw no need his heart's desire to heed
Cupid's arrow did not succeed
At long last, he must face the fact
That his heart's desire is in the abstract
Love has orbited too far
Yet he can still wish upon a star
Inspired by the Poem: A Vision Upon The Fairy Queen by Sir Walter Raleigh
Silver sentiel, silent sphere,
You've orbited through every year.
Your face a map of time's own gleam, Reflecting
every human dream. The lover's sighs, The warriors plight, Bathed in your impartial light.
You ask no questions, offer no reply.
Just watch ages flutter by. I imagine you listening, Your face a soft gleam. Reflecting the fragments of my waking dream. I wish for a garden, where colors can riot, and time is worthwhile. Not of Earth, but of star dust, a landscape unseen. Where thoughts take their form, vibrant and keen. With my thoughts in a whirl, I imagine a companion, someone who sees patterns in the dust motes that fly. And finds their own music in a lullaby.
Do you think wishes sent upwards, have anywhere to go? Or are they just echoes, that fade and than cease, Lost in the vastness, finding no peace? Moon, you are a pale disc, hung high serene, A silent observer, a cosmic queen.
(Immediately after being found "guilty"
of denying that the earth was stationary
and the sun orbited around it, Galileo
said, "Eppur si muove!" [But it moves!])
It's hard to live in Lilliput, I find.
I have to cross my fingers, play their game.
Their billing, filling, drilling daily grind
sits ill with me. They all trot out the same
tired cliches. Passing a painting, never fail
to comment on the squareness of the frame.
Unprofitable, weary, flat and stale.
You can't earn prizes here. These fools prize earning.
No sweets to eat. It's one long dreary tale
of condemnation, disapproval, spurning.
The Sunday supplements determine taste,
all tearing down, forbidding, banning, burning.
They're sealed in heavy metal, concrete-cased
austerity. They put the "die" in "diet".
What will survive of them is nuclear waste.
Denounce, detract, dismiss it and deny it.
Don't look for clover - look for cloven hooves.
Excoriate it, flay it, vilify it.
They'd love to let life lurch along in grooves,
the gauche, perverse, unruly human mind
trapped tidily in aspic. But it moves.
Forward thinking astronomer Frank Drake
did not worry about a mistake
Tried contacting aliens with radio,
waves had rather far to beam and go.
Frank orbited into outer space last May
Extraterrestrials from Venus do not play
He has put on their flag a USA flag
Even up in space, Frank is showing his swag
Happiness is easily found in a multitude of the sweetest components
Grateful for you, often swept from the feats, of our hours, sharring meaningful moments
Your citrines comprised burning bright; scorching everywhere
As an orbited sphere; willed they are a perfect solar flare
Climbing a summit inside my thoughts; that is all you
Beside me, you wrap me up while we both enjoy the view
One could mine for eternity; excavating nothing valued; seeking a gem worthy of a crown
But, I would stop digging at the surface of the earth; if it matched your eyes, superfluous shade of brown
On first glance all seemed well
but the stooped stance betrayed,
tremulous heart shaken,
under weight of struggles,
soul yet to awaken.
On first glance all seemed well
but then we saw bondage
to cravings of ego,
which our fellow soul was
unable to let go.
On first glance all seemed well
but the conversation
only orbited fear,
so we had to conclude,
dark desires they held dear.
On first glance all seemed well
but something was amiss,
with head and heart not linked,
it showed inner conflict,
soul as yet not love inked.
The first exploration was to the moon
Where we saw how its craters are hewn
We have orbited Jupiter to unveil the shroud
and unlocked the mystery beneath its dense cloud,
Man's curiousity has taken him to Mars
He's seen Saturn's rings as he journeyed among the stars,
Traveling to planets light years away
To reveal mysteries long held at bay
Exploring the universe is the ultimate goal
But they must avoid the deadly black hole,
and as the technology does improve
To colonize other planets is the next move
3-31-2023
Sponsor: Constance La France
Writing Challenge - 'Q' Words - Poetry Contest
Four Billion years or thereabouts
Earth has orbited its appointed place
Slowly and surely developing into
A safe and hospitable living space
What a strange year this has been
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Two
You seem to have bern so long passing
And I’m so glad to see the back of you.
A year of invasion and Warfare
Of bullies flexing their might
Seeming secure in their belief
That might alone is right.
A year of political spectres
Of crooks, spivs and ghouls
Carelessly showing to the world we
Are lead by blatant self seeking fools.
The greedy and avaricious seem
To want, and take, more and more
Leaving even less for the peasants
To fight and grub for off the floor.
The rich man in his castle still,
Security light and guard at his gate,
More and more decrying the excesses
Of the battered remnant Welfare State.
So goodbye twenty twenty two
Heaven only knows what we’ll see,
More of the same and worse I think, when
They usher in year Twenty Twenty Three.
Four thousand years give a century or two
That’s just about as long as it’s taken
For man to abuse Earth’s delicate balance
And leave it stunned and badly shaken
Once the centre of creation
Orbited by a sun and every star
Until growing knowledge showed
Just how insignificant we really are.
Riding a spec of dust at a Galaxy rim,
Occupying our out of the way place
As that Galaxy increasingly speeds
Through a mysterious, endless space
In a cycle of birth and death,
Of destruction and creation,
Until billions of years on
Comes a slow gradual situation
That, all energy burnt, the final stars
Collapse and, once full of light,
Our Universe become a place of
Endless lifeless eternal night.
For our brief existence
As our knowledge grows
We strive to learn more
In our driving need to know.
Were we an accident that happened
An incidental, unplanned construction
Were we alone, temporary, solitary prophets
In this process of birth and destruction.
Or, did we serve a purpose to learn,
And record for some purpose unknown
Until, somehow, with us soon gone
Our knowledge somehow flown
To another developing planet raising
Another developing sentient race,
The next chosen recording angels
There to take our privileged place.
We are not alone in this place
Just isolated in space
Our star isn’t dim
Just at our Galaxy‘s very rim
For no other reason
Than it was their mating season
They wined and they dined
With tentacles entwined
Then they merged and they all
Made mass love in free fall
So engrossed with that act
They overlooked the fact
That it just might be worth
Investigating planet Earth
Then they orbited Mars
And headed back to the stars
Their report just said
System boring and dead
And so to this very day
They’ve not been back this way
The church I went to as a teenager
was full of sex.
It seeped through the worn wooden pews
into the pours of our hands.
It sluiced around the stucco walls
and fake stained-glass windows.
The aroma of young girls at prayer
was overpowering.
On the surface older people
seemed oblivious to this sea of sensuality,
yet when I looked closer
peeping over the edge of my hymnal
I saw folks with closed eyes,
backs arching, many
holding onto some unexpected
yet well-known arousal.
A stirring gravity enthralled us
as we orbited a magnetic divinity.
That day I knew intuitively
that the holiness of life was a passion
gifted to us by an even greater passion -
one that loves us.
Roller skates
Roll smooth
In circles and orbited figure eights
Gliding great with the rhythmic moves
So quick
So slow
So cool
Ice skate
Aerodynamically
On icy floors slick and wet
A ballet on a frozen slough
Beautiful blades
Upon delicate
Crystal blue
Rumbling wheels
Radioactively
Alive with pumping legs that reel
Forcing friction like a mad banshee
Athletically willed
Heart rate
Speed kills
January 15, 2020
Double Dactyl Poetry Contest
Sponsored by William Kekaula
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