We are all living life in a darker shade of blue.
Depressing ourselves, vacillating on aspirations
and other youthful ideas of jubilation
that we were never able to see through.
We sit in the shadows wailing about our pasts.
Wasting time
thinking about failed chances.
Lost romances.
And other "Memory lane" garbage
never meant to last.
We need to stop living in these old lamentations
giving us nothing but heartache and frustration.
We need to stop giving into Satan's self-pitying plans.
Get ourselves up and take a stand.
Remembering that Jesus Christ is our Lord, the Great Son of Man.
Our God came to save us; He came to crash our sins to their cores.
So that we would not have to obsess about our yesterdays anymore.
Because, we know full well.
That Jesus, our Lamb,
can save us from these self-made hells.
So now is the time
to be released.
By Jesus Christ,
our Mighty God
and Prince of Peace.
Freed from these
darker shades of blue.
Released into a life
that He makes brand new.
I stood unsure when vacillating there,
My thoughts walked way ahead me waiting there.
I’ll reach you, love, ere my feet reaching there,
Wet you with love ere rain can, raining there.
Like some of my friends who come to meet me,
I’ll barge in before air entering there
And try to soothe the kind soul that dwells on:
How’ll the poor plucked flowers be feeling there.
To me alas, flowers die anyway,
O to die a slow death suffering there.
_________________________________
Ghazal |16.09.2025 | flowers, friend, love, rain
OF COSMIC TERRESTRIAL HUMANITY
We were born
Creatures of love,
And for a while
We remained so;
Unaware of knowing
And learning
Anything else:-
Then, as if
By a human-like
Summer solstice,
We tilted
Towards becoming
Creatures of hate:-
Now, we find ourselves,
Being confused, vacillating
Creatures of life, caught
In human-like equinoxes
Of love and hate,
On the terrestrial equator
Of human suffering:
Caught between earthly
Jaws of justice and injustice:-
Here, in the cosmic
Terrestrial nature
Of our humanity,
So much is taught
And learned
In our life’s seasons,
As we bloom and grow
From the womb to the tomb:-
The butterfly, its crimson mottled wings
flitting in the delicate Autumn breeze;
uncurled proboscis taking sweet nectar
from early dawns, newly opened daisies
does not regard the corpses of the men
whose dead eyes ever stare the grass below
fresh attention-seeking meadow flowers.
Men's bodies yet unclaimed, save for ravens
who do outpace the sunshine-seeking flies
and vacillating mothers, sisters, wives
to take an early feast of tongues and eyes.
They watched from high upon a sunlit hill
the eve before, gold sun on flashing blade,
the yet unhacked brawny sinuous limbs
rip through the waves of verdant sweeping green.
And all but them were silent for a while
the wind had stopped, the cawing of the crows,
the crickets chirp, the children's playful laugh,
until the clash of steel on steel on flesh.
The butterfly, its crimson mottled wings
lifted by the delicate Autumn breeze
is taken to a meadow fresh and new.
The journey languishes in the penultimate misty mile
for the forlorn facsimile of my being silhouetted still
at the fading fringe of the unfolded future obscure,
observing the blazing skyline of transient radiance.
The ordained kaleidoscope turns with time
with the vacillating vista of life’s lattice laid
on the mindscape copying the chameleon colors
of the ashen wasteland or the emerald meadow.
The vivacious vision draping the delightful dreams
with the eclectic tapestry of the transient ecstasy,
engraved on the wings of the beguiled butterflies,
focuses on the fulfilled fervent form self-designed.
As I travel across desolate desert dunes to the oasis,
or along the gleamed garden path to spring’s sanctum,
I capture the collage created by snapshots of beauty
in my mind frame, the window of vision on the world.
It was a flash of inspiration
A truly brilliant solution
It would solve a pesky problem
A neat and tidy resolution
She'd been pondering for months
Constantly vacillating
When all along the answer
Was in the shadows waiting
There were way too many rolls
Gathering about the hips
Caused by cakes and biscuits
And massive portions of chips
An exercise bike was the answer!
You know.... the old one covered in dust in the back of the garage
that had belonged to a cousin who went overseas.... but I digress -
Being inherently lazy by nature
And reluctant to cut calories
This would do the job nicely
And also be kind to the knees
Stretching her exercise gear to the max
She resolved to start straight away
She felt sure she would succeed
And summer was on the way
But after ten pitiful minutes peddling
She admitted defeat and packed it in
Cycling obviously wasn't her forte
So she consoled herself with a gin
My friend, cheer up
Never lose your cool
Act not like a fool
Start your first step
There is a sure remedy
Find it out with hope
Hard-work has a scope
To hug it, be ever ready
Time is very limited
Waste it not my dear
My words do you hear?
Let not duty be omitted
Thousand failures may arise
No success may be met
But, if optimism you get
You will meet with a surprise
God is not a silent spectator
He is going on calculating
His mind is not vacillating
He is a determining factor
You may now weep
But, surely not forever
So never get worry-fever
Try to peacefully sleep
The whole World may fight
With you showing hatred
Still loving is highly sacred
As love alone is real might
You may face now a loss
This may cause you pain
Due to a very poor bargain
Please rectify all your flaws
In case you are severely upset
Silently deliver a holy prayer
God is for the Cosmos Mayor
He gifts you peace as an asset
Just pick up courage and start
Let your mind be made stout
Be prepared for possible bout
Appeal to the noble God's heart.
A big conclusion by tomorrow I must hurry up and reach.
It's about what I am to ‘do’ with my doggy “boy, Billy ‘Blue’.”
Half-wittingly I just keep vacillating between two notions.
My mind is ‘churning’; my thoughts ‘turning’ like a tsunami.
A bouncy cute but "crazy critter" is making me feel so daft.
'He' may ‘BE’ in control of ‘ME’, a “bungling fur baby’s” Mama.
Do I give him back this Monday? Oh, I need to decide by then.
No ‘napping' for all his ‘yapping,’ but “his eyes” are "so sweet!"
Sept. 25, 2022
for Joseph May's The A's Have It Poetry Contest
(I sure hope I did this right!)
Anecdotes all arousing my head
breathless begging to be your best
carefully caressing your caramel skin
ditching the deep ditches of dolor
enveloping the ever-present eerie aura
faithfully faking the smile on my face
glamorizing the greatness of giving
helping the halos of doubt in my head
idolizing your individuality and independence
joking about jumbled thoughts creating a jittery feeling
kites of your kindness kindling a wind
loving every little thing you do
memorizing the many lines on your memorable face
not caring about nefarious nettles that pierce me
ornating odysseys of our past
picturing a perfect picture of us play
questioning why I ever had quixotic questions
rising ricochets of rampant tears
setting sails of the ship of our love
touching thoughts twisting in the air
utilizing every unexpected moment we have together
vacillating the value of valor
wandering eyes over the warm waters of your eyes
xenial relationships and the feel of your xilinous skin
yearning for the youngblood of yesterday
zoning into zeniths of zeal
Read me,
As the words begin to dance, vacillating bewilderedly.
Without knowing who and where, or even when,
Foolishly stepped out, to meet a kind
The kind with bitter, chunderous, nature.
Kind, very kind without a doubt.
A warm, contrasting view of this being
4 limbs, 2 faces, steps out to greet me,
With its soft, frail hand,
I pity the misunderstood, as rumours mutate
And transmogrify, smothering the barbarous reality
It smiled at me with one face
While the truth is
I set out to meet something different
Something much different,
Something noxious, oppressive being entitled
To authoritarianism, ideology and power
But it wasn’t here.
Or at least not yet
Is my mind an accident of the metaphysical,
of fragile pain, uncertain life or follies of desires?
Abstractions attract me like flies to honey,
vacillating theories seems to me like a refuge,
trying to grab air where only vacuum exists.
The creativity in me rebels as my mind accuses
my heart of the mediocrity of my serendipitous poems
that often flow from splinted quills of my bureau.
I strive to write a grand mythical masterpiece
but know my heart will never release its pent up lore.
It's really a demise of thought, a flare that never storms,
diverting my soul from random, useful conceptions
to microscopic flaws and nebulous products of imagination
and flounder on more mundane affairs that blight the spirit.
Strive as I wish, I can write no more….for now.
Two masks or not two masks?*
Is that a question.
Whether it is better to kneel,
to bow in silent supplication,
or show your teeth in anger’s
grimaced rebellion.
To walk at perfumes edge
denied the scent of love’s
soft fingered summons
erase a moment’s touch
in antiseptic angst.
Oh, but to once ignore
the droning voices
shouts of a falling sky
an ever present doom,
hanging, guillotine like,
o’er the heads of all.
To run, wind threshing
from your face
the dust of quarantine
the tears of dying’s dying.
To laugh, to shout, to sing
without rebuttal’s response
challenge the weights
of “fingered” scales
question the veracity
of vacillating voices.
Two masks or not two masks?
(*with apologies to the bard)
John G. Lawless
©5/11/2021
vacillating desires
vicissitude of thought
vintage but valueless
venting ego urges
vice vibes that vilify
vitiating our soul
volte-face yet we remain
05-May-2021
Pleiades V poetry contest
Sponsor: Kim Merryman
7 lines @ 6 syllables each
Every woman has in her interior
A flower-bed in her fertile heart
That grows green and matures
For every man in moody life
To harvest the choice in awe
But there is sharp knife in hand
To cut open man’s bone heart
That in it a hut she builds stiff
To live there to serve and nurse
The vacillating mood of men
That knows no limits of action
Skewed consciousness
Vacillating attention
Stuporous awareness
Enmeshed in stagnation
Divine entwined expansion
Synced to conscience’s voice
Or ego enmeshed contraction
Two paths: Our life our choice
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