I’m looking at the stream of life
But thinking of its sea,
While wondering who is free
To be what they should be.
Though life is short, it rambles on;
Still, we plan ahead until we’re gone
And before we die we realize
Our hopes and dreams metastasized.
Yet, after life what happens next?
We think we know, but only guess.
Yet, there are those who have a plan,
And forge ahead like a clergyman
Who is sure his beliefs cannot be shams.
They, too, look at the stream of life
While thinking of its sea
And wonder how to be free.
Sometimes I sit and I ponder.
I ponder about my lacquered erudition.
I ponder about my varnished rectitude.
I ponder about my penning acquiescence.
The insipid tedium of my veins questions my oblivion to a stupor so stark to the glorification of my solitude.
I ponder its adjacent to the extolment of my void.
The seething flame sanctifies the feigning rot of my lungs as I inhale the melancholy of your lips.
Something so soothing.
Something so soaring.
Something so laboriously stinging.
I desire for the salvation of sin;
To tattoo your words on my tongue.
To swallow my decay in your blood.
To fuse your disparity on my webs.
I sit and I ponder.
Am I so inured to the metal of these bars, I distort the culpable intimacy of still yet existing in one?
And thereafter, I ponder whether my silver ashes will ever dare to utter the sinister sacrilege of my syllables.
PONDERING THOUGHTS ON GOD’S WORDS
WAITING TO BE LIVED
Is it not gospel,
That we are all of one race?!
Yet, there’s racism!
It’s one thing to know the truth;
It’s another to live it:-
God still speaks to us;
But we still do not listen:
To busy hating:-
Belief is one thing;
Practicing it, another:-
We need to live love!
Mercy, mercy, mercy Lord,
Still navigate us:
Sowing and reaping fruitful
Lives of onderful onement:-
end credits rolling
a film from seventy-six
pondering a tale
TV screen fading to black
green youths on a movie date
Whose eye is on whose bless'ed
Hope, this sunset beyond
Viewed as inconsequential
With a dismissive look
All that lit, too smoky dull
With a too brief wick
His world, his journey's purpose.
"Time to close the book!"
Don’t let the mind build fires in the dark,
Where heavy thoughts leave a burning mark.
They say that the worry that tugs at your sleeve
Is a pyre waiting for you to grieve.
It consumes without heat, with a hollow sound,
Turning your spirit to ash on the ground.
You’ve walked the miles in the sun’s heavy glare,
Dragging the plough through the stagnant, thick air.
Months of the labour, the sweat, and the grit,
Yielding more strength than the candle you lit.
Yet one flash of anger, a spark in the chest,
Steals from the spirit its promise of rest.
We break our backs under the harvest moon,
Humming a tired, productive tune.
We mend the fences, we gather the grain,
Finding a solace in the ache and the pain.
For work is a bridge that leads to the day,
While worry just stands in the light of the way.
So lay down the baggage, the ghosts in the hall,
Don’t let the shadow make you feel small.
A moment of rage costs more than the years
Spent working the fields through the sweat and the tears.
Be kind to the vessel, be gentle, be slow,
And let the cold pyre extinguish its glow.
tree shadows on the driveway
keeping nature’s secrets safe
I watch them closely
wondering if they have souls like the trees they mirror
a robin glides past
is he a distraction or a sign?
the only sound now is the caw of an angry crow
the shadows are silent
MORE PONDERING THOUGHTS ON WAR
War murdering lives:
Peace and love, collaterals
Of power’s evil:-
Likewise is democracy’s
Justice and equality:-
Advanced murdering
The innocent and deprived,
Can’t be justified:-
Neither can apathy’s choice
To let war monger onward:-
Power is of God:
Peace and love always desired,
And unity rendered:-
Are we not lay apostles
Of God’s reaped worldwide oneness?
PONDERING THE NATURE OF TODAY’S SEASONING
After Autumn’s political Fall, Winter came like war;
Thus, the autocratic, Satanic political Winter we now have:-
Political Spring, awaiting to bring about resurrection:
Political Summer, preparing for nature’s transitions;
The Groundhog looked and saw its shadow;
Behind which, was seen, another weird red-shadow:-
Now, we must get to ensuring warming human nature,
In overcoming an extended oppressive cold political nature:-
PONDERING TANKA THOUGHTS ON JANUARY 6, 2O26
January 6th celebration:
Military invasion—
A polity’s crime:-
White House invasion paid off:
Venezuela, even more:-
Celebrating crime,
Has become our polity’s
Bigoted pastime:
Nixon and Khrushchev down there,
In one hell of confusion:-
What a well planned day!
And more hell is on the way:
Maybe, on this day:-
Is this what was voted for?
Oh yeah, “You reap what was sown:-
PONDERING AND SOWING TRUTH BE TOLD
Its words reveal that the one thing about truth,
And the one thing truth can never be, is that
Truth, in its reality, can never be an untruth.
Thus, be the unerring difference between history
And its deceptive-twisting footnotes of our story:
Know the inevitability of truth, can’t be edited:-
There is nothing “Greek to me” in the Alpha
And Omega of the birth and death of Christ,
Yet, the assumption of whites first, and blacks last,
Remains a classical antiquity-American mystery:-
Depth of thought hints at darkness in the beginning:
Otherwise, why was it necessary for the Truth to declare its light?
Was it because from the dark womb of life, love’s trinity came?
My people, truth be told, there is history, and there is ourstory:
Truth be known, let us continue to fight for truth and liberty:-
My knees are up and I’m still,
and lazily reflective.
Ludovico Einaudi’s song
‘Una Matina’ is playing.
For some reason
my thoughts align and make sense
when I listen to the piano.
I am sitting in still water, listening.
Right now, somewhere else,
someone else just might be doing the same.
Sometimes,
life makes sense, too.
When conscious of who I was and who I am delivered,
A sense of giving all my all, where previously I quivered.
I tried my best in all I did, through challenges diverse,
While others walked on smoother paths — for better, or for worse.
Though they had their problems, I watched them on the quest,
And when they died, it’s said of them, they truly did their best.
It puzzled me each time they passed, where silently I fell,
Pondering their journey — to heaven through a hell?
Guess so many try their best in everything they do,
Persevering and persisting, primely pushing through.
This unpredictable life with challenges, driven by mere hope,
And hope is hard to hold, down that shifty slope.
However, we're not good enough if we do not aim;
To float along should be wrong, such a shabby shame.
However, when my angel comes and carries me in rest,
I understand myself: they'll brand, “She did her very best.”
— Rest in Peace
TO BE OR NOT TO BE
(Apropos Of Pondering Self)
Do not doubt yourself,
Cherish your God given gifts;
Believe in yourself:
No belief in self is bad;
Refusing to is much worse:-
It wasn’t until they dug it up,
and gluggy clay stuck to the road-machine,
that you understood it was thin like icing.
Until we walked the dog daily,
you never stood on it mindlessly staring
at patterns of pink-yellow tree-bark peeling.
Concrete-veneer smacks our feet,
then it’s just dirt and rock, down, down,
all the way to the centre of the earth.
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