Shimmering light, gleaning
In my eye, million
Shades of green
Among the trees
What is it
That I see?
When I look at you,
Is it a reflection of me?
Or an abstraction of you?
Is it really you,
That I am looking at,
Or am I looking at me,
Through a part of you?

When did children lose their love of learning?

When they were told to conform,
To forget their being,
To discard interests, agency, creativity

My own complicity
In the stifling of identity

Authenticity, a digression of the self,
A dissolution of swarming
Complexities

When did I gain my love of learning?

The burning crucible
Of curiosity

Set aflame by rejection of conformity

Constraints, curriculum, crushing expectations
and a world disintegrating
fires of digressions

When is conformity an expression of authenticity?

When is authenticity just another form of conformity?

Inspiration is a hard thing to grasp
When you mind is empty
Like a field of grass
Yet filled within this field
Is nothing but countless hills
Rolling and moving and slowing
Soothing this lush green meadow
A massage to help the mind to help it mellow
Making it shallower and less
Convoluted. Not so complex, not seething in
Interpreted meanings and stained allusions to
Past confusions, not waves that pummel the grassy shores
Seizing those hills in frothy exhalations, seeming so
Unseemly to those guardian hills
Holding those pleasant fields and pleasant thoughts
Safe while the waves wash among the grass
And become those hills now washed with sea

And then my mind turned blue.

I sometimes wonder
If all is for naught
And every step
Towards the hallowed garden
Is a step away from me

Desperate was the Hand,
To the Fist,
To the Door of Introspection,
To the Mind, to the Darkness.

Pounding, pounding away,
The broken bones,
To the dust of flesh.

A moment before forfeit,
The Great Gate collapses.
Bursting into a torrential tide of Madness,
This scornful swell swam deep into the Heart.
Its suffocating chill, mirroring the growing Dissent,
Resonating all of discord in a living Thought.

Hope's last stand sends deceit fleeing.
Rushing waves, shuttering away,
From the pathetic kindle.
Such a sad flicker, this bastion of salvation.

As with All Things, this too falls.
The Darkness, the Madness,
The Door to all Doors,
Consumes the Light.

Ripples of Darkness
I tire, weary from the day
Nightmares sail forward
Through a storm of closed eyelids

Eyes flutter, dare I sleep now
Visions, lightless creatures
They call to me, more rather
I am sure it is a scream

Haunting me like absent words
The ones which I've buried
That creative self, once more
But we rise again, always

I let these spectres wail
Who am I to stop creation
Paint the horrific, vibrant dusk
And I'll admire this truth

In pondering the blues,
Of folk music, writing, and culture
I began,
"What is my celebration of sadness?"
I thought.
I reveled.
Rebellion and the fall of man.
The toxic man, the cancerous man
Who filled me with hate, behavior
And most of all suffering.
I celebrate this fall,
In the beauty of change
In the beauty of self-love
And as I loved myself, I became
Able to love others, as I always had
But without borders, an empathetic truth.
To understand, accept and to struggle
With the human experience.
Which I imagine will always be the case
Struggle breeds change.
And it is that I am most thankful for.