with my family,
my soft heart tenderly beats.
tough outside my home;
my mind focuses on things
nostalgic when I'm alone.
Adrift in sweet reverie while composing my journal
I sense myself wandering streets in solemn austerity
'Tis such a blunt shift from my usual musings nocturnal
To what do I owe this odd disturbing disparity?
In this vision I plod narrow alleys austere
A familiar dream within I-him I'm now aware
Presently it has become abundantly clear
We are one, he and I, as our souls we bare
In a flash the scene shifts to daybreak vernal and bright
In calm balmy bliss on guitar Bassa nova I-he strum
Dark angry clouds lift, azure clouds gleam bright
from whence have these diverse me phantoms come?
With a will I submit to my encyclopedia self
as inner projection reveals the multitudes I contain
Much more engaging than the one-I volume gathering dust on the shelf
My enigmatic space-time selves shall always remain
Don’t let the darkness sink in
Within a blaze of pain and of fire
You will be ridiculed
You feel how we feel
Hot and yet unbearably cold
With limited sense of remorse
No-one will arrive
You are your own messiah
You are your own
You yourself are your own judge
Your own jury
You are complacent
Yet you do not know what it means
You are the mask I wear
I fake envisionment
I fake the trust I put,
Within you
Believe in myself I say
Trust within yourself,
They say!
Do not give in
Within yourself is your own path
Is your own sustenance
Believe in no one
Yet they beg for yours
Do not give in
You are worth,
MORE!!!!
To soothe the cornered inferno
Consuming a sanctuary abandoned
Spider's silk like snow kissed ground
Walls caressed by a nurturing moss,
A mausoleum of birth
The detached ruins we carry
A firefighter's hose spouts curses
To cauterize a ghastly flame
The fire fights itself separately
So the lever pullers on the dispatch
Call into the ears of a healer
To douse themselves in gasoline
There is no pain, for in
Recognition there is warmth
The exiles of the charred asylum
Need something true to human heart
An acknowledgment of all their parts
Breathe deeply my legacy,
My mysterious abandonments
My asylums of the dead.
So many forgotten dwellings
Now boarded up and cold.
I once wore them and shed them
Like snakeskins.
All these mental spaces,
What was their meaning?
What visitations did I encounter?
So many giant houses of horror,
Gothic crumbling, rotting
mansions of ruin.
There, I was imprisoned
In solitary confinement self-imposed,
Like a rodent feeding on garbage,
I never thought to look beyond.
I breathe deeply into this meager legacy.
Now all these houses remain idle.
Why I occupied them, I will never know.
In my final chapter, I see,
Everything was empty.
Many in me are pure hate and wrath.
Others, just peace and detachment.
But nothing emerges lucid and effective that reconciles all that I am.
In the afternoon I throw myself in pieces from the top of my endless abyss.
At night, I silently piece together the puzzle of myself.
I keep my selves in a dark and rusty box and I only release the ones I really am so that they look for me when I don't recognize myself in anything else.
Between heaven and earth is so much more.
You and I are for instance, but before.
There is, we were; of two above will be;
The imprint of who will be you and me.
The glow of moon is not but with the sun.
The beautiful blue cloud shines from the sun.
You and I are meant to be just thus.
Gleam in warmth and heart for God, foetus
which turns a young teenager, taqi; pious.
Allah! The source of joy, grace shall grant us.
The silent awe and fondness in us sounds.
Our deepest selves; profound, hard to renounce.
Hence our collab...
Man has...
One body,
And one soul,
But two versions of self.
One that the world sees clearly;
A smiling, all-is-fine mien;
A face unmasked.
One side of self
Brimming with confidence
And compassion.
The other, hidden
From the outside world;
Cold,
Cynical,
Judgmental.
A pained face, concealed
with lacerated wounds unseen.
A face behind the veil
of self-doubt and insecurity.
A self, a face
hidden in the shadows,
afraid to turn around
and be illuminated
by sunshine,
but which one is true?
Date written: 04/28/2020
For two hours the Amish noticed the funny fowl dance
Delighting that the rooster and guineas attacked the mirror
The Amish women laughed as they hung out clothes to prance
Some were called to look with a slick, “Hey! Come over here!”
It is strange they think it is another like them, none think it’s a ghost.
The rooster was fierce, and angry as get out by the time of sundown.
The mirror was put away by Grandpa Amish who had loved it the most.
The guineas were more settled, but the rooster was still huffing around.
The next morning it was too dark to set the mirror out again.
By then a truck had arrived to deliver a pretty peahen.
She’ll fall for it the men said, placing their bets for some cash.
She was the smartest by far. She pushed the mirror over to crash.
as we grow
we change
we start to
feel comfortable
within our own skin
we start to trust
ourselves
we slowly stop
seconded guessing
every single little thing
we do or don´t do
we learn that there is
no such thing as perfection
so we eventually stop
striving for it and in the end we
just start to live as our
most authentic selves
My true nature, I’m told, I must seek.
I’ve been daft, I’ve been bold, I’ve been meek.
I’ve been angry and slow.
I’ve been high; I’ve been low.
So my "self-seeking" prospects are bleak.
Folding in to convention,
Sealed in creases of acceptance,
Maligned and misled
By the false promises
Of a stolen heart,
We chase the white whale
Of validation
Into waters of denial…
‘Fury—the rallying cry
of our vengeful spirit
Hate—the jilted lover
of our fated selves’
(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
I've been wondering about our secret selves...
The vegetarian smoker
The introverted joker
The soldier with the peace sign
The anonymous byline
The accountant with unfinished sums
The deaf musician's steel drums
The blue collar millionaires
The conservative who dares
The scientist who prays
The vagabond who stays
The man who kneels to take a stand
The female poet who's a football fan
We are all more than we seem...
12/26/18
Submitted to 'Honourable Mentions Worth Mentioning' contest
Sponsor: Richard Lamoureux
(I like playing with the idea of secret identities, which started me thinking of how everyone is both Clark Kent and Superman, we all have a face we show and a face more private and unseen-)
Folding in to convention
Sealed in creases of acceptance
Maligned and misled
By the false promises
Of a stolen heart
We chase the white whale
Of validation
Into waters of denial…
“Fury—the rallying cry
of our vengeful spirit
Hate—the jilted lover
of our fated selves”
(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
I'm wondering about our secret selves -
The vegetarian smoker
The isolationist who speaks Cantonese
The soldier with the peace sign
The blue collar millionaires
The conservative who dares
The scientist who prays
The vagabond who stays
There's more to all of us than what we seem
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