Sensing
Prejudice is a pendulum
that swings both ways-
I write,
not so much
for you to know,
as for me to tell...
Life isn't always a pattern,
Sometimes it's a Kaleidoscope!
How do you know what to believe
Especially when it’s words?
Did you see it, did you do it
Or was it only heard?
Was it real in time and space
Or only in your head?
Was it a thing you can hold
Or only something said?
And can you tell which is which
If you’re awake or dreaming?
How do you know what to believe
What's real or only seeming?
(9/5/26)
If a poet writes in a forest,
and no one is around to read it,
does it make a poem?
The jury is hung, the verdict is split.
Is it real or is it fake
Has the identity been scraped
From a picture that is right
But not theirs
Is it a business or a fraud
Are photo's copied - don't applaud
Or upload/install a software
They recommend
For these appauling lies
Upon which big business thrives
By stealing all your money
Or taking personal info for bad ends
Whatever it's corrupt
So through police/.gov disrupt
So mind your banks indice
And don't let them destroy your peace
Competence is seldom loud—yet confidence often is.
A charismatic smile may persuade a crowded room that wisdom has arrived,while judgment quietly waits outside.
Psychopathy,hidden beneath a layered mask,borrows the language of empathy without carrying its weight.
Its mirrors reflect only what others long to see.
The victim,neither wholly believed nor wholly forgotten,drifts between the sea and the sky—where truth dissolves into distance,and horizons become courtrooms of uncertainty.
To the practiced eye,the mask is never the face.
Charm is not conscience.
Persuasion is not integrity.
Performance is not compassion.
The sea remembers every foot print washed from its shore.
The sky remembers every silence that no witness heard.
And some where between them,where evidence struggles against illusion,stands the fragile human soul,waiting for perception to surrender to truth.
(“Perception and Reality Merit Badge”, 2015, original oil)
We think we’re something we are not
And it’s obvious what that is
To those who know what we are not.
Some think they are smart when they aren’t
Or thin, or strong, or talented, or beautiful
When it’s clear to everyone else they aren’t
Some think they are a male or female
When it’s obvious they aren’t
Even when they try with drastic measures
And authoritarian means to force agreement
There is still the small child within us
Who simply remarks
The Emperor is yet again not wearing any clothes.
Our lives become a continual progression
Of such false beliefs and misguided hopes
With death the ultimate test at the end
Will we die then
Or only realize our body all along was simply
Something we are not.
(6/26/26)
Touched the sky—
this blue isn't mine.
The sea, the greens,
the grass, the bees,
the mighty trees.
Every color touched one life.
Then why does mine deceive the eye?
Borrowing shades from every passing thing
Could that be why
I sit alone in white light?
The palette holds a thousand colors,
yet none can paint me.
It's always what meets the eye.
The palette never seemed mine.
Ages of Time…
We split it into fragile parts,
Seconds, minutes, hours,
Measured life in numbered beats,
And called this structure “ours.”
Yet time won’t count what we keep,
It does not rush or wait,
It passes beyond our grids and lines,
Unaffected by our fate.
Time was never born of clocks,
Nor carved by ticking hands,
It stretched before the stars and earth,
Not ruled by human plans.
It runs its path, it never stops
Unbroken perfection, vast and free.
Yet never a glimpse has been seen by me.
Norman Van Etten
( author of: "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" + "Lila")
_____
Love is the engine of "Ingenuity". Robert Pirsig's "Quality Metaphysics" begins with the 'Moral Imperative' as art and engineering translates from psyche to laboratory - from the artistic Heart to hand.
This is the blindness of modern science (Subject/Object Metaphysics) when asked what "Dynamic Quality" is. it is The Perception Of Quality As Translated Between Those Two Mediums.
.
Perception is the cage in which I’m stuck in daily
My being is a double sided mirror, the thoughts of others are on the other side just barely out of my grasp
I don’t mean to be so over analyzing
Wait.
Do you think I’m over analyzing?
Do you think I’m chill or too anxious or weird?
If you could describe me in five words what would it be?
What do you say about me behind closed doors?
What was your first impression of me?
I’m doing it again aren’t I?
The key to the cage is on the ground precisely five feet away from me.
The bars are vastly far apart.
I could slip out of the cage if I wanted to.
But would they think I don’t care enough to stay in the cage?
That I’m taking the easy way out by slipping between the cracks?
Nevermind.
I think I’ll just stay in here
Unless you’d rather I not.
If it were ever possible to be seen or heard,
it would amaze me
to find myself inside you
my shape carved
by the harsh reality
of what you made of me.
I am a thing—
a jigsaw of
your silent prayers,
crumbs of curses,
you never spoke.
I refract through every lens,
I might appear to fight your demons,
then sit and praise them quietly,
or I might orchestrate their evilness,
just to watch your breathing fade.
I could be the waiter six feet under,
serving dinner to worms,
on a cold night.
I could be the hand behind the barrel,
aimed at your beloved face.
I might be the one beside you,
in your daily ride to work,
or the friend,
who loosens the weight in your chest.
I could be a stranger
surviving on the sidewalk.
I can be the air you breathe,
and still
you would never meet my eyes.
I could be you—
or a part of you
that sparks every doubt
and silences every certainty.
Through my words,
we could face each other,
for minutes,
like a passing coffee,
or for years,
aging quietly
inside your thoughts.
Or for an eternity
walking beside me
unraveling—
undoing your existence.
This morning the cardinal lands
the lawn dormant brown.
A server in a Mexican restaurant
said it was her favorite bird.
I loved her back then.
Legend says seeing it
means someone who died
is trying to contact me.
My father?
My mother?
Who?
During long summers
they took me to uncle’s farm.
My uncle drove a Farmall
painted red at the factory
for pride. The seeds he planted
sprouted oats colored gold
to be gathered in fall.
Long hours he worked
he was a patient man.
After harvest the fields
laid in shadows, only
only to rise in spring.
The cardinal’s red
is a reflection of light
when I awaken and gaze
outside the window
as morning calls me to live
live again.
They say the cage is invisible,
But I can’t even hear the bars rattle,
How ignorant can I be?
I squint;
Peering at others clawing chains I can’t see—
I wonder;
Is my sight broken, or just clean?
I ask, why can’t she be?
They stare—
as though it was clear;
“It’s what’s missing between her legs,”
And what could that mean?
I laugh, unsure if they were joking;
She doesn’t—
My tongue lays heavy inside my mouth.
She’d been convicted by unseen jurors,
in a trial she was born into;
Where I thought I was asking,
I was only echoing.
His cries pierce through knots
of testosterone—
I hear his pain,
I reach out but my arm pulls back
when I hear:
“Now we know what’s between his legs,”
And what’s
that
got to do with it?
I can’t see the cage, the chains,
And how visceral it is for them to keep sane,
But how torturous—
A soul that is bound.
From here, I can only
picture—
The pain you feel,
But I believe it is real;
This is quiet place I stand.
For the lovers
Every decision
I ever made
was for the sake of love —
love of something,
love of someone,
love of somewhere.
If you were to ask me
what love was,
I couldn’t tell you.
It’s simply
the why
of it all —
why we exist,
why we keep going,
why even the calloused heart
screams for its presence.
Love life.
Love death.
Love something,
love someone,
love nothing —
love it all.
Beauty beheld
in pupils
irises
expanding Spirit’s filaments
mind
deciphers
delicate
impressions
flowering nerve shiverings
heart petals unwrinkle exposing tender core
temporarily holds what is
to falter, fade
then dissipate
senses alert in
perceptual observation
bows gratitude
personality evaporates
as Beauty returns
into Source’s palms
we
ache
for
a raw rare repeat ~
__________________
Placed 7th : Brian Strand Premier Contest
On Beauty : Feb. 26
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