Tag: acceptance

Unpicked

Every grain of sand is consuming.
Winter after winter culls
Our offerings, and our reserves,
Overripened, go unpicked.

We only rehearse our songs to Silence,
But if we were heard, and approval
Laid on us, would we know what to do?

If it is a genius that alights
On me, how do I form a technique
From it; and where beyond the sand
Can one find a base to build?

The words and directions of others can't 
Reveal memories' inner world;
But to be there with them and to share
In the common dream, like beholding a peacock,

The world beyond yet partaken in,
If you could just accept and exalt it.
Even the unpicked fruit gets eaten.

This Living

I won't refuse it, this living of mine.
Frustration glares at me like a sign:
My era is ending; I'm losing my way.
That's been true, but why decay
When once I bloomed upon this vine?

You know, once I would decline
Handshakes out of terror. How fine
it is now! Kenny drops by and says hey; 
     I won't refuse it.

I thought I had to change my line.
I thought I had to leave behind
This chapter. Before I never ate,
Now I do with laughter. Why say
That now this humble life's supine;
     I won't refuse it.

Whatever

Whatever can be a beautiful term,
Not just a juvenile linguistic squirm.
The word exists in many forms.
Despite it earning my partner's scorn,
Sometimes the word helps me stand firm.

On occasions when rage in traffic worms
Its way inside, extinguish the burn.
Even if they honk the horn,
Whatever.

When my lover fears I'd spurn
Him for something shallow as a derm;
When he asks me so forlorn
What I'd do to help but a thorn
Of his dreams come true; I reaffirm:
Whatever.

The Superstar

The superstar of a single block
Is irrelevant on another's clock.
He's made his crowd scream and shout,
But anywhere else he has no clout.
If he's a headcase he's in for a shock.

Once he leaves he's a line of chalk.
Who'll care if someone should hock
Any blasphemy about
                                    The superstar?

At first it'll all seem inside-out,
But is there ever really a doubt
That after he's gone life continues to walk
Ahead, away from yesterday's talk?
That corner will still exist without
                                    The superstar.

Fragments 2

Wasn't great today
But what is there to do,
Lay down ready to die?
Leave it like days do too.

***

Playing up the sham,
You know it's such a shame;
They'll make your name shimmer,
But only when shown tame.

***

Living through changes 
But we remain unchanged
In love, for the danger 
Lies in growing estranged.

Reflections on how I got here

"Beware this reckoning,"
Glares a spectral pair of eyes.
Blood quickens in frozen veins,
Stricken as though paralyzed.

Leering back from inside 
The mirror, a crack which grows
The distance facts drift at one's
Insistence; then slackens, slows.

And crawling over shards,
Wounds are all to show for wants
Slicing black weals of static
Lack of any real response.

The daunting pain of silence
Spawning deranged interviews—
A prison with no orders,
Visions thrown to trinkets' truths.

Worst is when it's within 
The first sentence of doom speaks.
Overpowered by black bile,
Loathing and foul wrath it wreaks.

The dreadful sensation
In the head made manifest:
Seizing trips that mark the sick,
Squeezing grip of panic's press.

Heaviness dimly drapes
Every limb, as though submerged 
In water's lips; every move
Murmurs, stripped like a soul scourged.

Beneath this awful weight,
Seething, clawing to maintain;
While fearful of this deep hole,
Here the soul can greatly gain.

It's a cage, and no skill
Engaged will, it confounded
Me; but blessed with room to pace,
They dressed patience around me.

Basically life support
Is the grace the dice produced
To hand me a family
Withstanding my sorrow's sluice.

To think they looked at hell
Without blinking, it took more;
More than courage, more than faith,
The surge of strength love looks for.

Looming death, fate diseased;
Assuming the weight of both,
How they faced it despite dread.
They allowed my glacial growth.

They paid for my prices 
As I laid, a dying mind,
Withered body torched in hate—
Delivered by a fortune's find.

They believed in a time
When even I am able,
Condoning this path to shed
Loneliness's black label.

It was pure chance to meet 
Him, to endure and advance
Past privation and piss-drunk
Starvation's soul sunken stance.

My family props the sky
Up while hammers drop on nails;
And my head has turned up for him,
Ready to earn grace's grails.

Am I a wretch reborn
By a lucky catch? Of course;
Without either my life's in
Doubt, but strife still stalks its source.

His presence builds me up
A pleasant hill to defend,
But misaligned spheres can soon
Find my spirit brought to bend.

We've grown this better sense,
Sown medicines, worked what found
Subsistence, a miracle
System sheer as sculpted sound.

Our one-room made of smoke,
Blunt and bespoke, fleeting home;
In a flash what saves me could
Crash like waves of frothing foam.

I cannot guard, protect,
By forethought or by power,
Against illness, accident,
Killing events' furled flower.

There's much I can't make kneel,
A touch could steal all I care
About. My dear, meekly tread
And scout ahead. Best beware!

Fragments

Ask stupid questions,
How can you request
A serious inquest 
For a jester's bequest?

***

Prepare for losses,
Expectation lessens;
Then make actions listen
To life's painful lessons.

***

Staring at demise 
Can tighten a dream's seams.
Resilience made demure,
Repentance hope redeems.

Confucian Cup

The Master said: “A cup not a cup: A cup indeed! A cup indeed!”
-Confucius, Analects VI.24

The best thing I could ever be
Is a cup.
                I wish to be filled
With all that destiny will pour;
I wish to hold it all, and yet
Be nothing more than the vessel,
Be able to pour it all out,
Be capable of emptiness,
Yet still the same exact vessel.

Let me fill up with the ideas
And dreams of contemporaries,
Finding methods to mold their shapes,
To hold them each without spilling;
Let them fulfill triumphs with me,
And lift victory to their lips
With me as humble implement, 
One of many who may have helped.

Let me bear the mixtures of fate,
The windfalls and catastrophes,
The tragedies and elations,
Moments of otiose ennui,
Humdrum days into humdrum weeks;
The little words that shouldn't mean
More than laughter and love of life,
A cup with the integrity 
To keep all that held together
Until the time to pour it out.

A cup is perfectly empty:
It can be filled, it can be drained.
It can hold and can toss away.
Fill it, empty it, wash it out;
It's still a cup that's good for use.
When there's nothing at all inside,
Its potential is at its peak.
What a brilliant skill of being,
Bearing it all without a split
Sundering its function and form.

Whether tippling, whether toppling,
Full of nectar or of poison,
A good cup will hold either.
Allow me a way to contain
The good, the bad, and the water,
Our everyday necessity.

I want to be the cup and not
The contents; I want to accept
That and embrace that in my way
As fluid occupies volume.
I want to be the cup, and when
The time is right I can let go
Of anything and everything.
If I am spilled I can refill;
In the end it's not a big deal.
No cup would stress over these things.