There's something that lives inside me
I feel it cause it feeds on me
It feeds on all the softness
And leaves my rough edges to rub on me
I need an X-ray because I can feel it's big
It's like a cancer that consumes me
A darkness not from this world
Forged at a time I was lost
This unexamined pain can't be left unattended
Most days I babysit it and it drains me
I'm awake even in my sleep
Cause i need to keep an eye on it
Maybe that's why love is hard to keep
Cause it doesn't take root
How can it while the pain sits there
It's made a home where it shouldn't
And all the medications I keep taking ain't helping
Cause it goes straight to the pain
And leaves my body aching
And all this pain I'm left to project outward
The PO£T
can it be, equanimity the antidote
a life unexamined, is a life not worth living
self-absorption hears the drum of one
it an ego-driven malfunction
wrong reality rapt in silent adagio
the sponge soaks the water and cannot desiccate
your desires alone illusory, arrogance
leading to aversion, not to confuse with self-love
Oyez soliloquy! (gavel strikes) so hence
primal love you claim to defend—a chimera
Voir Dire on Love
I Am Anaya
2/21/26
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I write, my heart spilling onto the page, for the alternative is the quiet death of unexamined days.
Yesterday’s Wishes 6-25-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday’s Wishes
Yesterday’s wishes never grow stale,
Immortal dream walkers glint in platinum.
Fresh hope with wings, like moonbeams in a mason jar,
Nudges wrinkled wishing stars
To capture a prayer implored on the first star,
Slipping through starlight on a chivalrous quest
Determined to take destiny outside the ephemeral.
One fluttering penny never scarred by disbelief
Lives in moments of perpetual could.
A breath, ever new, kisses Heaven
On a still pond without wrinkles
With a heartbeat that shakes time and astronomy
By blasting beyond algorithms and black holes
Into the unexamined fantastical.
Ever youthful wishes charge past the iron will of probabilities
When heartbeats flutter outside of mortality.
Possible stomps on the impossible in resurrection
Grabbing Eden’s fragments, fancies of faith,
As yesterday’s wishes belong to eternity
And live in a forever dawn waiting to bloom.
chrysalis tears
meconium oozes
soft wings cling
butterfly’s
pupal fluid
red like blood
caterpillar and chrysalis
combine to change
ugly duckling to swan
first flight
like a falling forest tree
without sound
without witnesses
beauty unexamined
unmounted
An ancient Greek named Socrates
Once said, "The unexamined life
Is not a life worth living."
He might also have gone on to say
That the unexamined heart
Is not a heart worth giving.
Old Soc was right, of course, I guess,
But he forgot to mention
That you can only examine
Small chunks at a time,
Because life, as a whole,
Never gets anyone's full attention.
I Will Be The Better
*
To have left the world
Without making it a better
Place for ourselves and
Our animal friends,
What kind of a life was that?
*
To have left the world
With family and friends
Remembering me as cynical,
Sarcastic, and pessimistic
What kind of life memories were those?
*
To have left the world
Loving conditionally,
What kind of love was that?
*
In my next life I will be the better
For letting our world's
Flora and Fauna
Instruct me in the
Ways of stewardship.
*
In my next life I will be the better
For loving my family
And friends unconditionally.
*
In my next life I will be the better
For listening to the children
With my heart and soul
And let them guide me
In the ways of innocence and wonder.
*
And when I cross over,
I'll give a nod to Socrates
Who, once upon a time, said,
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
And I will be the better
For having examined mine.
*
When dappled shadows flit through darkened backstreets,
and whispers rendezvous with one another,
the usual bright spirits take a backseat.
They nurture remnants of rebounds which smother.
When cadence of sweet trilling of dawn chorus
unwelcome thief: give dream a few more seconds.
Deceit of sun when rays are merely porous,
its loving embrace reaches out and beckons.
Fomenting trouble ‘gainst my better judgement;
tormented by unbidden thoughts of moments.
The unexamined life is not worth living –
fulfilment’s in the act of freely giving.
Inspiration that’s echoed in poetry,
I dance with shadows in this vibrant city.
Poetic form: Yclept Sonnet. For more details regarding this form, please see my article, Introducing Three New Sonnet Forms, here on PS. Also, a 'Summary of Metres' is depicted.
I sat quietly staring out the porthole window
As we were passing over a village in the low hills
A cumulus cloud casting over its ominous shadow
Far below in the silence of the engine’s shrills,
I wondered where those tiny people were going
Beneath the wing nary a songbird nor butterfly
Alone streaking through the frigid air, the Boeing,
Not a face lifted from village below to the sky
Then it was gone, as quickly as I had imagined,
I rummaged through my satchel of ordinaries
Forgetting a whole community of unexamined
Miniatures, no concern for untended cemeteries,
I had long forgotten when the plane descended
My sweet reveries in solitude, my journey ended.
Written June 10, 2022
Submitted to "2022 Marathon Mile 1" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney
If it is that there is luck,
fortune, flower and boom,
tell how,
for then would be peace of mind,
if not the sense is just,
an adventure of vile,
the same thing last year seeken love,
ere case still is a calamity,
ere from a different angle,
the worst are such waves and night
mare sighs,
perhaps, it cannot be so unexamined.
I think I've got to take a little time today,
A little moment to ponder on few issues,
I'd better read between the poetic lines,
In case I need it when my heart is turning cold.
The bloody and rough path I must tread,
Feels like the heaviest rock upon my soul,
But through the blurry and uncertain future,
I see greatness and brightness,
Which gives me hope for better days.
In my whole life, there's been heartbreaks,
Undoubtedly, I can't face them again,
I really can't stop now or later,
I've already gone far, given in my body and soul,
To change this nasty and unexamined life.
Indeed, I want to know the meaning of self-actualization and inner peace of mind,
I wish poetry can show me,
I just can't hide anymore,
Because poetry has found me.
S - Sage,
O - Outstanding
C - Cosmopolitan,
R - Reason's
A - Apotheosis,
T - Transcendental
E - Euphoric
S - Spirit. *
© Demetrios Trifiatis
13 December 2019
* Socrates, Greek moral philosopher, teacher of Plato ,born in Athens in 469 BC , died in Athens in 399 BC.
Here three of his famous sayings:
a) I know one thing that I know nothing.
b) There is one good-knowledge and one evil -ignorance.
c) The unexamined life is not worth living.
You wanted
a knight in shining armor
that I could never be
but you were too shortsighted
to realize that I knew the path
to your liberation
and you turned a blind eye
when I tried
to point out the road home
ignored my every whisper
as the clues
went blindly unexamined
Know thyself
Confusing – maybe?
The reality - we are all we’ll ever have
Personal awareness is of utmost importance - indeed
Evolutionary dialectical battle
Vociferous the subconscious mind
Perpetual synaptic reactions
Unexamined – troubled - unkind
Awareness precedes Transformation
Transformation – Holy Grail - life’s key
Rise above the ancient biological chatter
Peace of mind – pure ecstasy
Discard the externals
Internals – it’s all we can change
Situations will certainly challenge
Challenge self by knowing – knowing self minimizes the pain
Nothing in life really changes
Therefore we are challenged each day
Knowing thyself is imperative
Awareness of self enlightens our way
Beings in Imagination
By Mark Miller
Brazen colors dance suspended,
Over time's delay of existence.
Frozen stills by photographs gravitate
By a grounded descent in cognitive dissonance.
Emotions explored yet unexamined.
Sentry ghost crawls through holes silent facticity
Thrown down the relative subjective
As our pendulum stands over the meek blue of blind devotion.
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