A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
“I knew that great poetry has the power to start a fire in a person’s life. It can alter the way we see ourselves. It can change the way we see the world. You may never have read a poem in your life, and yet you can pick up a volume of Mary Oliver say, or Neruda, or of Rumi, open it to any page, and suddenly find yourself blown into a world full of awe, dread, wonder, marvel, deep sorrow, and joy.”
you are and I am. I am who I am
because I choose to be me.
The only thing i didnt choose
was being called a “He”.
I chose to sit up,I chose to sing
I chose to touch the insects
I chose to feel their sting.
I ate a bit too much that day
I chose to work it off
I found my self delightfully drenched
I suffered through my cough.
my life is but a web of choices
my life’s become mapped out
I dance through out the echoes
of my earliest childhood shouts.
My mind is melting
Molten, mush
Beneath the weight
And heat of stress
Stress? I guess.
What else could it be?
Sleep deprived,
Insanity?
Splintered thoughts
Rushing round
A carnival of
Sight and Sound
Ever floating
Never slow
Always drifting
to and fro
Floodgates burst
Sirens scream
Tornadoes tearing
Quite a scene
Earthquakes rattle
thoughts from shelves
scatter around
the little elves
No connection
Strings are cut
Emotions drained
bloated gut
Staring, twitching
hands do shake
sighing, sighing
Need a break
Tension tightening
winding cords
Balloons bursting
By swinging swords
Heads are rolling
Children cry
Money burning
Dreams die
Open windows
Listen. Cuss.
Hear that? there.
It’s not just us
Infection spreads
from door to door
from town to town
from shore to shore
Why, marvel, me?
It’s nothing new
It’s always here
Just change the view
Created, I
Can uncreate
And birth a
Drastic, different fate
Uncreate this stress,
This mess.
Open hands
Holding less
Letting go
Is full of pain
Muscles rip
Sinews strain
But what we built
We can destroy
And in the rubble
We find joy
Brokenness
Leads us to
Where beauty blossoms
From bloody dew
New worlds exist
Beyond this cage
Release the lock
Turn the page
Enter in
to light so bright
A cemetery
Full of night
Can not keep out
This brilliant sight
Free at last
from stress’s plight
Stretch those limbs
All pail and white
Give up, Give in
Lose the fight
And enter in
to light so bright
At the dawn of life
It is empty and dark
Like a vast lonely space
Full of imageless silence
If there are thoughts
They are but sparks
Which melt into dust
Like lightning hitting sand
The veil is pierced
And light rushes in
Too overwhelming to understand
And thus life begins
Its as if we have no tongue
No voice to explain
How utterly terrified we are
At this lack of control
And so we scream
Our impulse is to cry
And we’re held in loves arms
In and out of sleep, we grow
Eventually, we gain control
Like trying to grip the wind
We sense, we test, we fail;
repeating without end
The sounds around us are melted wax
Smeared inside our ear
So meaningless they resonate
and resonate, and resonate
Until we begin to hear
The canvas that was blank is now
Full of colored streaks
Still so meaningless they are
weak after weak after weak
But in time, a shift
so mysterious
From meaningless sites and sounds
To familiar words and images
From utterly lost to found
But meaning: What is meaning
At times we think we know
But through guilt and shame
We know our name
We know our face from the crowd
We lose our innocence but gain
A sense of what is real
Like rocks which waves erode over time
We lose the ability to feel
Till all that’s left is an empty shell
a vast and lonely space
Innocence returns to us
With a very different face
