Hypothesis:
What is an ego anyways
Are we born with it
And from the moment we have the willpower
we’re tasked with muting it
Or does it grow from experiences of rejection
Fed by whom?
Is it intrinsically preserving,
Extrinsically repelling…
For the sake of avoiding philosophical debate
Let’s say we have an agreed upon theory
Experiment:
I’d like to think my ego dissolved
The moment my mother dropped me
From her arms before I ever had a chance to challenge Piaget’s concept of object permanence
And when I plummeted to reality
I landed upon the selfless idea
That if their need for affirmation
Could supersede my need for survival
Then I could keep from ever falling so tragically again
Analysis:
And though ego death happens in silence
It’s showboating that sustains ego life
Suppose one without the death
could never question their impulses.
Without an initial fall
The ego can’t even see it’s own reflection
Categories:
plummeted, change, death, mental health,
Form: Free verse
“can we see your arms?”
how does one sentence effect me so deeply?
when the police asked that question
my heart plummeted in my chest
my eyes got watery
my hands got shakey
and suddenly i regretted everything that i had done
i didn’t want my grandma to see
how much i hated myself
how much i hated the body that i inhibited
and how much i hated the lines on my arms
but i raised my sleeves
she started crying
they asked questions
i don’t remember a lot from that night
not the questioning
not the ride to the hospital
not my mom sitting beside crying, asking why would i do this
i didn’t have a answer
8 year old me didn’t have an answer for why she wanted to die
just that she missed her dad
13 year old me didn’t have an answer for why she needed to die
all she said was
“i don’t know”
“im sorry.”
Categories:
plummeted, angst, depression, mental health,
Form: Free verse
Dark red, luscious apples felled from her own tree long ago
Under the beaming sun plummeted with a soft, aching blow
The sweat drips and plops, scruple over a furrowed brow
Upon the discovery of rot that blackened her plow
“Has the wind gone mad–or am I the one insane?
Dirt and grime, high dry–surely the only way to explain”
Denial among hatred, she could not face–but under the murk, bits
Beneath, the snakes–surly and shabby—placed high their bids
The heat danced faster as the days passed far less paced
Her blonde hair bleached and pruned, but left one space
The temple on her right seemed blank and bruised
As a failed blow far too long past was nearly used
The magazine fell as she begins filtering the rot past her mind
She screams, shouts, yelps and cries, sobs of an animal forgotten by time
“I never meant for this to go–go and blow up like this!
I never meant. . . I never meant for me to hurt our kids.”
Too far from gone she was, behind silken white bars and drenched in ammonia
“I know, my love, but I must leave and forget you—may heaven forbid us, Aurora”
Categories:
plummeted, my children,
Form: Rhyme
Turning over in a ruffled bed,
stark red numbers sear 4 a.m. into bloodshot corneas.
Nothing but darkness creeps through threadbare curtains, frozen in place.
A desolate silence becomes deafening, as birdsong no longer crescendos—
what would have been the breaking of dawn.
It's been six years now since our brightest star was thrown out of orbit,
exposing the frozen side of the sun.
No longer does our planet experience the warmth of its radiation,
nor the glow of its solar flares.
Within a fraction of a second, humanity was plunged into an everlasting night.
Temperatures plummeted; mass hysteria was at its peak.
Crops perished within hours to days,
as the new icy tundra eclipsed once-thriving farmlands.
The birth of a perpetual Ice Age was at hand.
Power grids crystallized and snapped.
Cities crumbled; small towns were blotted out,
disappearing off the map, never to be seen again.
Death's gelid hand spared but a few souls—
holed up in a scientific research bunker in the Arctic.
We are but the unlucky few who get to “live” in this glacial purgatory,
wandering aimlessly forevermore.
Categories:
plummeted, dark, gothic, natural disasters,
Form: Free verse
She promised we would see again,
The trailing night was a restrain.
She wanted to see me some years ago,
Couldn’t see her even to say hello.
Raging hearts were yet to be pacified,
Her late coming wasn't yet justified.
She promised we'd see again in the fall,
But mortals cannot see all nor know all.
Her mind plummeted into the night,
She was a shadow in the light.
Slowly she eased into the beyond,
Pulling apart our newly found bond.
November 8, 2024.
Categories:
plummeted, death, grandmother, lost love,
Form: Couplet
His life came to a ruinous end
Plummeted into insanity
The red-bearded painter
With his self-hatred, despair and desperation for understanding
He drank yellow paint thinking it would make him happy
Locked up in a mental asylum that would shatter any person’s self-belief
Deceived Vincent cut his earlobe in an unforeseen calamity
But he channelled the awful torment into beauty
Immaculate and sublime
To find ecstasy in the ordinary
And in transforming the banal into a magical masterpiece
The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Self-Portrait, The Potato Eaters, Wheatfield with Crows, Irises, The Bedroom in Arles
Each a genius’s masterstroke into Eternity
A jumble of love, sorrow and rage
Painting the canvas in bold strokes as his heart and mind burst into flames
The King of colour, a whisper into the future unheard in his times
He died in a rut with voices all over his mind.
So, he picked up the gun
And the bullet went straight into his golden heart
Wonder how many colours lost their lives on that day?
Categories:
plummeted, anger, anxiety, color, depression,
Form: Free verse
He sat captured in a surprised look,
Middle-aged, youthful and vibrant,
He was committed to his work and family,
An uncommon balance admired by his colleagues.
His story was that of grass to grace,
From humble beginnings,
He moved up the ladder,
He meandered and blossomed,
He was a shooting star in the night sky.
He took a wrong leap,
It was an anguish reap,
It pierced his soul and wrung his heart,
He couldn’t steer a middle course for long,
He plummeted into darkness,
He eased into the night at his prime.
A keepsake of him fading away gradually,
Slowly erased by time and clime,
Brought back to the light,
Awakened by technology.
September 19, 2024.
Categories:
plummeted, death, father, loss, sad,
Form: Free verse
Uncalled Storms
I have been on a merrily sailing voyage
but it started to tremble with an impromptu stormy rage
waves went subversive, wrecking my body with pain
dismantling the harmony flowing through my vein
Winds got treacherous and even the rains decided to betray
the fate just doomed and the hope plummeted within
a day
Life is struck by storms envisaging again with
no alarm
And I now know how to endure the agony until the winds go sober and calm
As the storm passed away, my voyage had to proceed
in pursuit of the land
And I sailed again defeating the deceitful waves
above the sand
Categories:
plummeted, absence, adventure, betrayal, blessing,
Form: Rhyme
His miser boss
Went out for a toss
When the MD knocked his door.
He plummeted down
To save his crown
When his senior asked for more.
His hair had grown
on his chest
On his back as well down south.
Where nested in peace
There hung two bees
His tongue got stuck in his mouth.
The doc came up
Once or twice
To run his regular tests.
His BP down,
His wife in town
He lost his killer jests.
He crossed himself
and prayed to God
His taste for wine was lost.
The honey bees
made merry cheer,
His company bore his cost.
Then one fine day
they stopped his pay,
No wife no son no home.
He saw a man
without a shawl,
All hurled and curled in snow.
With nothing to lose,
the bees long gone.
He poured his drink once more.
The only coat,
he gave in zest
To the man and settled his score.
Categories:
plummeted, 8th grade,
Form: Rhyme
An ice maiden came.
She sculpted and glazed,
transforming the earth
into an ice age..
Acres of farmland she
chilled with one sneeze.
All life stood silenced
where ever she breathed..
In one frigid breath she
blew all the leaves.
They dropped to the ground.
Some froze to their trees.
She waded thru rivers and
streams to entice, and tucked
them to bed under layers of ice.
Climbed tall mountains, and plummeted
them with snow.
The ice maiden was pleased with
the beauty she bestowed.
Categories:
plummeted, nature,
Form: Rhyme
Jimmy was intent on beating his own record.
Forty-six hours of straight video game playing.
He heard some crashing outside.
Thought it was a garbage truck.
Never looked out. It would quit eventually.
The bashing and crashing sounded closer now.
More like Armageddon than a garbage truck.
Jimmy turned up the volume on his console.
Twenty-eight million and sixty-three his golden star said.
He was ahead of his own record by sixteen points!
The building began to jerk, as if a giant spaceship had lassoed it.
Jimmy ignored this the best he could, which was not easy.
Pop! The power went out. The apartment went solid black.
Darker than it had ever been; Jimmy felt exasperated.
Looked out the window as the building plummeted into a giant sinkhole.
Categories:
plummeted, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Prose Poetry
The skies in the grounds above and beneath me I stand
I'm in command my life is over and above me
In the hidden space on this too much Rios place
my eyes envision I see the invisible
my mind is over and above me
Telltale signs and wonders
I often wonder barefooted I stand
I walk on quicksand
plummeted it falling yet
I hear the calling
Posture horizontally I stand
I rise as the sun sets I stand
under the moonlight lit
Forbidden to fly
I have no wings I
just have eyes
I flourish in the skies
that's how I fly in my dreams I lied
As the angels cry out
they too want mercy in the hidden space
I am an accomplice
too the floatation beauty be told
I am a rock climber on a mountain of pure gold
10/3/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2023
Categories:
plummeted, blessing, community, courage, destiny,
Form: Dramatic Verse
Juicy, ripe cherries, still on the jade green trees,
In vibrant, orange sunshine, glinting at summer.
Blackberries winking, saffron noon hour of ease,
When rose strewn seconds, seem lost in slumber.
Fragrant, purple plums gleam hotly, very coveted,
Lustrous, wild raspberries, deeply red and purple,
Ruby red apples aglow, like fiery sun plummeted,
Until all are lost in darkness, 'neath stars eternal.
Written on 3/20/2023
For: A STRAND NO 1201 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Categories:
plummeted, beauty, day, fruit, nature,
Form: Rhyme
It lay on the sand,
its bronze scales wearing
a soft shroud of moonlight,
a gaping mouth no longer
flushed by water but by
the thin poison of pure air.
I reached down and ran
my fingers along the translucent
mucus covering its body and felt
the deep tremble of a life
still fighting to free itself,
the muscles and taut
sinews now stripped of strength
could only harden beneath
the touch of my hand.
It no longer moved but gave
an occasional soundless gasp.
I wondered what horrors
were flashing or fading
in the recesses of its brain,
what it was feeling
in those moments
before dying.
Its upward eye was locked
in a frozen stare, a black pupil
opening to a hole
that plummeted beyond
earthly depth.
It seemed to hold me locked
within an orbit that had
opened around the gravity
an inpouring dark.
Fifty years on I feel
the draw of its stare,
the pull of the unknowable
centered deep within
its eye, still slowly winding
me in, only now
I am so much closer
to its rim.
Categories:
plummeted, death, fish,
Form: Free verse
A lobster trap must have caught something big
It plummeted into the depths of the Aurora Sea
Captain Fishman danced a glorious jig
Thinking he’ll caught a treasure for free
When they were pulling it up the rope almost broke
This must be a sea creature or monster maybe crewmate
Or a mermaid or merman said first mate McBloke
Mermaid wiggled and jiggled all the way out of that sea
Categories:
plummeted, fish,
Form: Rhyme
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