Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Walking through The Square
I could hear anger and anguish
spill out of two drunk quarrelers.

They look about my age.

They're facing each other.
Instinctively I fear for her.
I can make out their words
and that's all it takes.
In an instant I realize
their unfathomable pain.

"I'll never see my child again" she wailed
and he screamed "it doesn't matter",
Their past clinging to them;
Couldn't look away.

"He was so small", she despaired and collapsed
while he stormed off but only managed about 10 paces
before he too threw himself onto the ground and lay crumpled

at the foot of the dry fountain-bed.
How many tragedies have befallen G-town, throughout its history?
People have been here so long. Let me go/away, need to **** this place.
"On my temple in Delphi there are two words written:
Know Thyself.

It's good advice,
Know yourself. You are worth knowing.
Examine your life. The unexamined life is not worth living.

Be aware that people have equal significance.
Give them the space to make their own choices, and let their choices count as you want them to let your choices count.

Remember that excellence has no stopping point and keep on pursuing it. Make art that can last and that says something nobody else can say. Live the best life you can, and become the best self you can.

You cannot know which of your actions is the lever that will move worlds. Not even Necessity knows all ends. Know yourself."
from p.364 of The Just City by Jo Walton
And suddenly, for just a second, I saw it
again, beauty in the world, in the sky,
After dusk. Where've you been?
I've been singing, and it's
come back to me;
Kindness begets calm, and
right now I feel like I'm worth it.
Everyone deserves peace. The summer's

approaching, and there's nothing to fear.
I see the glow of streetlights appear as
the last hues of twilight begin to fade
and uncover the stars. It is good to

feel so human
at this point in time,
To feel the return of my
soul into my mind, psyché
once again made whole. Ah, sweet
nightfall. This wellness surprised me.
I dare not ascribe it.
The phrase "a broken home"
attaches much value to
the nuclear family.
As if to ask
whether the people
themselves

aren't fractured
in some way. Were it
intrinsic, we wouldn't last.

The phrase
is indicative
of a shame I'd
reject, but
at the heart of it

there's some
There's such a strangeness about meaning, knowing
it may be of no significance to others
but is the world to you.
Can anyone else feel this, can one communicate, what's
stopping me from feeling you?
Am I locked-out of your experience, or locked-into mine?
The soul-ache to escape, serotonin pangs.

Longing for connection, the body wanes and the town's fallen.
Hopes and dreams, aspirations,
Wonder without reason. I sit here,
Looking over the river, upon the university campus
where I spent many days studying, and a commercial boatclub
where I spent many nights raving. I sit on this rock
where I read The Tempest and write for myself
and listen to compositions of my own hand.
I think how selfish I am, experiencing
A World Alone (- Lorde). I am
sorry not sorry. I swear
I haven't forgotten
what it means
to be human.
The rain and the wind, ragged and wet weather
unlike any other out in the forlorn West.
We go at it all the same, buzzin'
in the soaking precipitation.

That night I saw a man realize he'd spent years of his life
wasting around G-town, and'd naught to show for it.
The lure of endless craic and perpetual sessioning
had ensnared him and he'd lost himself to this place,
Became a character in the local scene that recited his lines
and acted out his part.
What was all that he felt?
Were it at the behest of his
town, the jester himself
knows this place well.
Artsy-types, buskers,
Hippies and jugglers,
Crusties, line-backers
Shams and knackers,
Sesh-heads all.
Passing students, wanna-be teens.
All pretending they're larger than life
or whatever, in this way they almost are
but in-keeping their company you'd easily

become a fixture of the town. Ah,
You can't blame the city for its nature,
Though you may certainly curse it some.
After all you're the changeable one, being.
XOR
Cut my wisdom teeth on a bass synthesizer.
As the day of our green patron saint approaches
I'm indifferent to thoughts of debauchery that once
invigorated my soul. This town has changed and I've
lost faith in the session, these memories are so pointless,
I'm somewhat manic, surely a result of excessive stability.
I think this is my prime reason to get out, but
my love for G-twn remains; part of my soul'll be always buzzin'
here, in the city of my birth,
The place where I learned
how to be a human being.
Next page