I am a musical note in a guitar
Waiting for the touch of dexterous hands

I am a chrysalis under a paling leaf
Waiting to be turned into a butterfly

I am raw ore in the far depths of the mine
Waiting to be extracted and purified

I am a smoldering piece of coal in the hearth
Waiting to be blown into a flame

I am a rough stone under the Earth’s crust
Waiting to be hewn into a diamond

I am an antique piece long buried in the soil
Waiting excavation to become a treasured exhibit

I am a piece of canvas fixed on the easel
Waiting for the touch of a master artist

How I long to transcend my rawness
Into something better and refined

But can I do anything wholly myself
Never! Everything depends on others will too

I discern I am only a flickering shadow
That has existence only if there is light!

There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.

"Love Conquers and Conjures a Fall"

What do I do?
Could it truly be my ordained duty to this one of beauty set before me?
Not allowed to be proud,
to scream out loud that a cloud has been lifted,
that I've been gifted.
No longer the obsession of confusing my once unperceived deception.
The very essence of her presence reels my will from surreal to real,
revealing a feeling of peeling apart my concealed heart.
Under divine direction,
with opulent affection,
and your eyes reflection,
my heart gains protection,
my life direction,
my soul connection.
It's hard to conceive belief she could alleviate the gated fate of my forsaken heart.

By R. Craig David-copyrighted 2001