The thoughtless pursuit,
Of any task throughout life,
Will never end well.

The Wise Speak Softly

The wise speak softly,
Fools yell out their every thought,
That all may know them.

___

Los Sabios Hablan en Voz Baja

Los sabios hablan en voz baja,
Los tontos gritan cada pensamiento,
Para que todos puedan conocerlos.

https://allpoetry.com/VictorD._L%C3%B3pez

El mundo es mi ostra,
Aunque muerta hace tres dias,
Ataúd maloliente,
Forrado en madre perla,
Ocultando ningún tesoro,
No una perla grande y perfecta,
Sólo mis huesos cubiertos de carne,
Y los sueños que una vez soñé,
Que murieron mientras yo vivía,
Con esperanza que nacieran.

He sembrado palabras en tierra fértil,
Los regué con sudor y lágrimas,
Fertilizados con sueños muertos,
Y crecieron, florecieron y prosperaron.

Una rica cosecha tengo ahora,
Cestas repletas de hojas muertas y prensadas,
Encuadernadas en coloridas cubiertas,
Que otros puedan repasar a voluntad.

Me brindan recompensas y algo de alegría,
Me sobrevivirán, aunque no mucho,
Y ayudaran a otros a aprender,
Y quizás a mejorar sus vidas.

Ojalá hubiera sembrado menos palabras,
Cosechado menos fanegas de hojas,
Y elegido sembrar otras semillas,
Que habrían florecido en almas.

En un instante intercambiaría
Celemines de bonitas hojas muertas,
Por una hija mía,
Amada mediante toda mi vida.

Lo hecho no se puede deshacer,
Aunque senderos no tomados me llamen todavía,
Al menos sé que cuándo me vaya,
Las hojas muertas nunca llorarán.

It is hard to soar,
When one's wings are soaked in tears,
But this too shall pass.

Does true love exist,
Or do we simply dream it,
To fill empty lives?

And if it is real,
Do we see it with our hearts,
Or just with our eyes?

Can we ever tell,
Self-delusion from true love,
And does it matter?

Should we not embrace,
A chance for shared joy when found,
If it does no harm?

Believe in true love,
Hope and dream and strive for it,
If it's not yet yours.

It gives life meaning,
Makes all our pain bearable,
Keeps away despair.

You won't change the world,
Regardless how hard you try,
Work to change yourself.

Why have you left me, sweet old dreams of youth?
I tried so hard to hold you in my heart,
Where have they fled, faith, honesty and truth,
Or were they only visions from the start?

Do I hear music deep within my soul,
Or mocking echoes of a bygone time?
Embers still glow, though I am growing old,
But they grow dark and cold, as does my rhyme.

Each passing moment wears away my hope,
As does the blowing sand the desert stone,
Symphonies fading to a single note,
Leaving me empty, bitter and alone.

I grieve not for my life; I have more sense,
I grieve far greater loss, my innocence.


[You can access my reading of this poem at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ4EVKhvEYQ]

Most prized Christmas gift,
Humble table, a meal shared,
With loved ones still here.

An excess of pride,
Paves the road to perdition,
As does want of it.

Little, cuddly, smart,
And in the fullness of time,
He will move mountains.

Evil will triumph,
When we foolishly refuse,
To call it by name.

Tell me who you're with,
And I'll tell you who you are,
Spaniards say wisely.

We know so very little about dreams,
Are they just fantasies we realize?
Products perhaps of the subconscious mind,
Working out problems as we sleep at night?

No one yet understands the human brain,
Mapping its function is beyond our grasp,
Despite the knowledge science has achieved,
Its mystery's still a Gordian knot.

How does cognition arise in our brain?
What are its secrets we have yet to find?
Where does the soul reside, if one exists?
And what is hidden from the conscious mind?

What if we were to find to our surprise,
Others inhabit that which we most prize?

Hear their approaching hoofbeats,
See the destruction in their wake,
Know it is we who summoned them.

The poison of our hatred draws them,
As does the indifference in our hearts,
And the darkness in our souls.

As we've sown, so now we reap,
Division, acrimony, and ill will,
Harvests that nourish our inner demons.

War, famine, pestilence, and death
now march,
Trampling freedom, hope, and truth,
Co-opting and mocking God's grace.

The tipping point is visible on the horizon.
Soon there will be no turning back,
If we succumb to our collective madness..

While there is life, there’s hope, Spaniards do say,
What good is life, though, when all hope is gone?
With our hearts breaking, we can nightly pray,
Try to ignore reason’s call to move on.

Faith for a time can keep our hope alive,
Drown out despair’s compelling siren’s song,
Until the sands of time slowly contrive,
To wear to nothing that which once was strong.

And yet I cling to that thin, fading dream,
That all might yet be well for those I love,
For no one knows what will flow in life’s stream,
Known only to the mind of God above.

Please help her, God, and all I love in need,
Please, dearest Lord, I beg you, intercede.

Las arenas del tiempo fluyen,
Cayendo hacia el olvido,
dejando algo atrás.

Pure hearts never die,
They stop beating and ascend,
From whence they have come.

Fledgling,
Broken wing,
Carefully nursed,
Shielded,
Nourished,
Loved,
Healthy again,
Vantablack wings,
Powerfully beating,
Propelled skyward,
Fueled by,
Benefactor's eyes.

I've published twenty books to date,
I love to write, that's just my fate,
My textbooks tens of thousands used,
But my poetry needs a boost.

More write than read poems it seems,
And I won't pay marketing schemes,
Nor will I pay for book reviews,
In hopes of better book sale news.

The mortgage my non-fiction paid,
My publishers more profits made,
My first house fully paid by them,
My indie fiction's no such gem.

Judge not my poems by these weak lines,
They're as annoying as French mimes,
My books much better verse contain,
(So does graffiti on a train.)

For those still reading these my lines,
Download my first book free online,
You'll find it at the link below,
Until June 10, not one day more.

All eBook versions free through June 10, but only at one of the retailers where the book is sold: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/181370

Death has no meaning,
For those who have sown good seeds,
That will bear sweet fruit.

Las aguas plácidas fluyen,
Perezosamente este día de verano,
Pero oigo las cataratas.

We sleep at night secure we think,
That surely we'll awake,
But what if dreams would others link,
Intent to our mind take?

Our brain gives birth to consciousness,
Though science knows not how,
Our brightest minds can only guess,
But never truly know.

I posit other minds than ours,
May share the sleeping brain,
And in some cases nightly hours,
Through dreams cause us real pain.

If we are weak and they are strong,
The battle they might win,
They fight to live, no right or wrong,
In the struggle within.

TranslateMatar de hambre a su pueblo forzado a comer a sus mascotas o de los contenedores no es suficiente;
Causar la emigración de más de 3.000.000 de los mejores y más brillantes ciudadanos no es suficiente;
Una tasa de inflación anual del 60, 324% en la actualidad (fuente: Forbes) no es suficiente; Rechazar a punto de ametralladoras alimentos y medicinas del extranjero enviadas para ayudar a los enfermos y a quienes se mueren de hambre en las fronteras no es suficiente;
Traquetear la Constitución y establecer una dictadura no basta;
Miles de millones de dólares robados al pueblo venezolano por compinches no es suficiente;
Destruir la esperanza, el progreso y una economía mundial líder no alcanza.

Hoy los matones del gobierno están literalmente atropellando a los manifestantes en vehículos blindados.

Un pequeño grupo de apologistas de izquierda rabiosa en los Estados Unidos nos dicen que ignoremos al hombre detrás del telón en un intento demente de defender lo indefendible deben finalmente enfrentar a la realidad.

Maduro debe irse. Su distópica marxista debe ser desmantelada. El pueblo venezolano debe recuperar el derecho de autodeterminación a través de elecciones libres y justas, no las falsas elecciones que todas las naciones comunistas utilizan para mostrar cerca del 100% de la aprobación del tirano gobernante.

¡Ya basta!

Publicado originalmente el 30 de abril de 2019 en inglés con el titulo “Venezuela: Enough is Enough!"

Can our dreams **** us?
One man finds they can and leaves
A warning and proof.

Tus ojos vidriados me miraban,
Sin reconocimiento,
Pero ahora lo ves todo.

A three-ring circus,
No animals/acrobats,
Just pathetic clowns.

A beautiful woman is awakened,
By an off-world visitor with a plea,
With enticing compensation promised,
If she will render a simple service.

Compensation would be two priceless gifts,
No humans possess and few would pass up.
Say yes, and the world could be her oyster,
Her high ambitions within easy reach.

Should she accept? And if she does, will she,
Attain all that she craves, or tragedy?

Las malas ideas no mueren,
Prosperan como hongos en la oscuridad,
Desarráigalas con luz.

La muerte no tiene sentido
Para quienes han sembrado buenas semillas,
Que engendrarán frutos dulces.

El río de la vida,
Fluye por un rato,
Y muy pronto seca.

Míralo desde la orilla,
Desde la seguridad de la tierra firme,
Y nunca te ahogarás.

Pero si te sumerges en el,
Navegas los rápidos fluviales, arriesgas las cataratas,
Flotas en sus curvas plácidas.

Conoceras la alegría,
De paisajes en constante cambio,
Más que vale la pena el riesgo.

Te rasparan las rocas,
No encontraras sombra contra el sol,
Y poco tiempo para el descanso.

Cuando las aguas se secan,
Y llegas al final de tu viaje,
Realmente habrás vivido.

Coding will set you free,
Repair, rework, renew, reinvent ruinous reality,
Into a multiverse where reason reigns and creativity flourishes.

Excise the tired, mundane, mind-numbing predictability of the real,
Transform it into a rebooted reality that erases every flaw,
Expiates original sin and finally frees humanity from its anchor to clay.

Soar on the winds of possibility to heights undreamed of,
With wings not of feathers and wax impervious to the sun,
Then cut the cord of existence and live forever in a perfect world.

I do not write for money,
And even less for fame,
I write because I have to,
It's simply who I am.

I'm a jack of many trades,
And the master of a few,
But they do not define me,
They are just the things I do.

What I write will not endure,
Much of it will not be read,
Little of all I publish,
Will survive long once I'm dead.

I'd write if no one read me,
In ink, on sand or in blood,
As long as reason abides,
I know that I will not stop.

It is so for all of us,
Who are writers at our core,
Writing is our very essence,
It is who we are, no more.

Love freely given,
Ripples in the universe,
To outlive the stars.

We choose to keep the homeless out of sight,
As though they'd vanish if we do not look,
It's easy to ignore their sorry plight,
Treat them as lesser humans God forsook.

We easily dismiss the luckless few,
Though there but for God's grace may go we all,
Yet hubris blinds us to what we once knew,
Before our childhood's end, before our fall.

How different to us the world would seem,
If we knew billions worshipped each of us,
Unheard, unseen, their fates not ours to glean,
The least of us, in fact, a world en masse.

If kings and paupers both are just the same,
Denying each dignity is insane.

Under the radar,
One avoids the flak of life,
But will never soar.

Counting sheep an hour,
Very bored but not sleepy,
Will try chasing them.

You are surely mad,
When you believe yourself right,
And the whole world wrong.

**** Sapiens Sapiens,
Are at the top of the food chain.

We would do well to remember,
Long ago, so were dinosaurs.

La libertad es tu legado,
Comprada con tu preciosa vida,
Lejos de casa y de la familia,
En guerras sabias e imprudentes.

Camino a la luz gracias a ti,
Enseño, escribo, hablo, pienso sin miedo,
Y nuestra bandera vuela libre sin tocar el suelo,
Faro de esperanza a través de los años.

Estoy orgulloso de nuestra bandera,
Mi mano sobre el corazón mientras canto,
Nuestro himno nacional,
Mientras mi voz se agrieta y los ojos lagrimean.

Siempre me emociono,
No de orgullo tonto y vacío,
Sino porque en ella veo,
Tu sacrificio conmovedor.

La libertad no viene de un deseo,
Ni la paz de las oraciones por sí solas,
Viene de soldados como tú,
Que desinteresadamente lo dieron todo.

Te llevo en mi corazón,
Todos los días de cada año,
La deuda que te debo no puede ser,
Paga con palabras ni con lágrimas.

Descansa en paz, amado muerto,
Que Dios te conceda honores debidos,
Hoy voy a enarbolar nuestra bandera,
Y en ella siempre te veré a ti.

Scientist's playthings,
Cause the end not just of earth,
But of our universe.

Two decades passed since my first book of poems,
It was past time to publish volume two,
The sands of time weigh heavy on my bones,
And my road narrows with yet much to do.

Too many friends have now passed through the veil,
As have my parents and their siblings all,
My circle narrows, empty now my vale,
In sleepless nights I can but hear their call.

So many dreams deferred that now have died,
My negligence bereft them of their life,
So many doors left closed I should have tried,
No hope remains for me or for my wife.

Even my music echoes distant, dull,
But poetry can for a time pain lull.

____
If you would like to download a free copy of the eBook version of my second book of poems, Echoes of Dawn at Dusk, you can do so only at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1035449 until June 20, 2022.

El mal triunfará,
Cuando neciamente nos negamos,
A llamarlo por su nombre.

"I know that I know nothing" said the wisest man who ever lived,
"I know that I know everything" said the dumbest of them all,
The rest of us fall somewhere in between the two.

Wisdom comes from knowing that the smartest humans,
Are like amoebas trying to understand the universe by examining,
In minutest detail the drop of fetid pond water they inhabit.

When you don't know what you don't know,
And realize you are as ignorant and insignificant as an amoeba,
You will have begun the long journey to enlightenment.