The weight of thoughts

We hold deep within

Gather and increase in mass

Till we’re beings of immense gravity

Attracted at the moment of first contact

Never letting go


Even through the unseeable distance

I can still feel your pull-

Feel time stretch into infinity

Feel nothing else within my hold-

From our fateful event horizon


Even though we’re both vessels

Of very little voices

We’re far from empty

We’re far from silent-

With every unspoken word-

Not let out to wander and

Disperse-

We bear the roaring wrath

Of neutron stars deep within

Our Soul


And such

Is our ‘Density’

I filled your absence with neverending thoughts of you.

I loved you more in your absence
Than I ever did in your presence
I learned to love you in moderation
And not give in to my obsession
And whereas I only felt limited happiness
Never fulfilled, never content
Always craving more and more
I now struggle tirelessly within a dark void of emptiness to hold on to even just a vision of you.
I miss you dearly, and I spent every waking, and slumbering moment thinking of you, in happiness, in sorrow, in regret.
When you were still here, you were my purpose, you were what made life bearable and worth looking forward to.
Now that you are gone, I still remain, not for my longing of this world.
But, because I am afraid one day, if and when the world turns its back on you, there is still a speckle of light wanting to light up your entire world.

How much poetry live within me

Or am I merely a vessel

That has to be loaded and unloaded

To not waste away under the calm wind

And sink to a weighted depth of silent

And unfulfilled dreams


Yet what is the use

Carrying a soul from an unwritten land

To an unread land

Both dotted with footprints of past voyageurs

But no path or end in sight


Perhaps I am destined to be an unnamed pilgrim

That treads upon and whose marks will be tread upon

The wasteland of hapless ambitions

Transforming it into a garden of everlasting

Love, freedom, and hope


There,

You may find me one day

Though you will not know it

Nor will I

Within a petal of the rose

A dust in the dew

The wings of a honeybee


And if you look closely,

Listen closely

Within the laughing wind

As the gale brings all of us

Across the sea

Carrying vessels after vessels

From dream to dream

I

Men must slumber in the darkness
In order to be truly awaken
Men must be desperately lost
In order to look up at the endless stars

The young love to sing about death
While the old worship life like the sun
The young are hopeless on earth, dreaming of flight
The old fear to be parted from the land without a raging fight

II

Who wants to be from War and Peace
The Fly against the loft sky
But we are all just flies
Traceless, each life in a dream it lies
Always to be awakened, bringing nothing and taking nothing
Why must we seek truth in a dream?
If we will forget them when we finally open our eyes
With joy, with sorrow
We witness death
Just so we would strive to stay alive
But why are we alive?
To prepare us for what?

III


Is it just for that half asleep, half awake
Shadowy, faint, and veiled memory?
Is it possible that when we truly open our eyes one day
We would still feel all that we’ve felt in the dreams?
Yes, in my brief nightly drowsiness, I have felt
Despair and happiness
And existed so profoundly!

Slumber or Awake, Illusion or Truth
Reality or Dream
There never was any true death or an end
I was always
Alive Alive Alive

I

Life is the only route
Between nothingness and the endless
Our birth on earth, and our perishing to dirt
Are both equal ends for the existing

And fools will simply rejoice in the illusive brevity
While sages prepare for the everlasting dance
And fools will take comfort in the darkness obscuring his sins
While sages prepare for the brilliance of the yonder light  
By already shining and basking in this life

II

I want to be from War and Peace
The Bee of such trivial and insignificant life
For we are all just bees
Unnoticed, but must exist
Why were we ever born to fly,
When true height is beyond this life?
Just for the pollen and nectar, taken and given?
Till bees return to the impermanent or the forever?
We will regret their absence then, bitterly and barrenly
Witnessing loss, just to learn to cherish
The existing.
But we exist, for what?

III

Is it just for that half asleep, half awake
Shadowy, faint, and veiled memory?
Is it possible that when we truly open our eyes one day
We would still feel all that we’ve felt in the dreams?
Yes, in my brief nightly drowsiness, I have felt
Despair and happiness
And existed so profoundly!

Slumber or Awake, Illusion or Truth
Reality or Dream
There never was any true death or an end
I was always
Alive Alive Alive

Conclusion:

Being alive
Is not just so we can die
That is completely meaningless
Being alive,
Is the only route
From nothingness to endlessness

Only having been once alive
Can you be resurrected
Only when you walk this road to the end
Will you find and continue the pave to the
Neverending Land

Chapter One — In the Woods

For all I know, I could be in a dream right now, no beginnings, no once upon a time, no long long ago; and perhaps no endings, no happily ever after, no the-end, and no non-arbitrary answer to the question. Of course, no one wants to read that, no one wants to be told that all they’ve ever believed in is a lie, what it is in the end, is what it was in the beginning, hopeless.

Everything is trivial, at least at the moment, at least that’s what I feel, well, I am who I am, is that not correct, or am I suppose to be someone else, or feel like someone else, the other I do not understand, the other I do not care for or about, the other I would never want to be, or the other that embodies, mimics, and mocks, all the sources and ends to my yielding to the scorns of life. No, I am only ME. That’s all I will be. Except, at the moment, and as abruptly as it may seem, at the moment- I do not know who I am.

Chapter Two — The Girl

Sitting in the subway, taking a stroll around the lake, all that time away from actually writing, your entire purpose of existence will-not rush to your mind-but simply all make sense.
Whether or not that is actually constructive is again, trivial at the moment. Whether or not the fact that the absentmindedness afterwards undermines all that insightfulness that had came before it makes the entire conversation unworthy of being discussed by its entirety, is not important, or just not interesting enough for me to ignore the fact that I am, at this very moment, running through a endless territory of barely anything other than stripes of forests away from the occasional darkness that most would call night.
If there were anything beyond the soft grip of the crisp emerald fields of molds and fungus, the soft shower of the gleaming silver moonlight, the tanning hides of the shading elms, an occasional joy of a little wilder beast, and the deadly silence, it is not within my sight, and I must be heading towards it. Yes, there must be something else.
Something beyond this stillness, this stock-still, never fleeting moment in time; there must be an end that is not an end for all this seeking of the seeker. There must be a meaning in all the seemingly meaningless continuation of a standstill.
There must be a gift, a present, well just a difference, to be the spark in the storyline, but what is it? I could guess, but that’s expectation.
Expectation, the tail of the tale you will be chasing after that exists not, because, all that you would have believed in only exist within your mind.
Anyway,

The Tree

One of my branches caught beneath the cape, and scratched at her ankle. I shook, and she did too, but only so slightly. Perhaps it was the wind, well, for me, but for her, I would rather, it was the instinct sensing of pain, or may be just a itch. Whatever it was, it was to be felt; she felt it, and so did I.
She did not, however, respond in anyway, and quietly she passed on. This is a disappointment to me, sadly. Actually, it was more than that, I felt a downing of emotions, from the curiosity of a child to the most slight, yet the most intimate pinch at the heart, a sharp pain.
What did I expect, was she to stop and grant me a part in her story, in the flight of the has-been worldly, and leave everything behind.
Have I forgotten, once more, that I am a tree, the ultimate metaphor for permanence? Even at that, the fact that I cannot move is not the question, what should be asked is what more could be there for a tree; yes, will I always remain, when all have passed on, the response as always, is probably yes.
What is there then, to all this, why do I still remain? As a tree, where did I get a hope that there is a hope, and what exactly is this hope. Perhaps I just always tell myself to wait and see, yes, maybe that is it. I’ll wait and see.
I turn around, or I just turns my attention back around, expecting to see her vanishing into the distance, however, she had not yet passed me. This time, one of my other branches caught at the cape, threatening to tear off the shield, I tried to stop them, but again, I cannot move. As she defends, the instrument of disguise, also known as the mask, almost yields, and unveils the mystery.
She quickly stations it back in place, nonetheless, although my appearance is as still as stillness can be, with my quick wits, I stole a look beneath the golden disguise, and I was surprised, yet not so much as I was delighted.
She was gifted with a natural pureness in her features, plain, yet, upright, proud, and inherently, and elegantly innocent. The nobleness draws the most fear, shame, and sorrow.
If I could, I would, lower down my gaze, and the crown-how ironic-of my tree, not in admiration, but in shame, the despicable, inevitable taunts of my conscience.
It is only now, that I have noticed as she had passed my way, that there is another player in this game, another character in this story. On her shoulder, sits the stereotypical shape of a petite and bright star. The light, lights my veiled blush of humiliation; she seems even more innocent, even more careless and naive, even more happy.
What is it, what is she smiling about; what is she thinking about?
YES, WHAT IS SHE THINKING ABOUT?

The Star

Well, I am her, so I would, or just, I should know.
The dreadful thing is, her identity is still a mystery; it doesn’t matter how close you gets to her, whether or not she is a princess, a ordinary farm girl, a boring city child, a dangerous assassin, or whatever she is, doesn’t just suddenly hop out in the clear for you. However, you can still sense from the baseline of our so called humanity, the little insanity our souls call intuition, an indecipherable comfort of our inner most consciousness, and subconsciousness.
I can see my own reflection from the back of her mask, funny how I can’t still see Her. Does it matter if I see myself, if all that’s ever going to change is my consciousness. Perhaps not, perhaps all I need was a sense of being, a sense of existence, to feel that extra undecipherable sense of bliss by mere proximity, I am with her, feels her existence, and that is all I needed.

I will keep the memories of you in my mind
Like a cherished and tattered anthology
To flip through constantly
Happy to have found such a wonderful treasure
However fleeting and incomplete each story may be.

The road from Nothingness of Being to Existence of Being back to Nothingness of Being is logically unsound and inefficient. A straight path of redundancy, from a permanent nothing back to itself needs no meaningless detour of a temporary path where nothing is brought back.

The road from Nothingness of Being to Existence of Being forward to Endlessness of Being is a much more rational way of travelling. As an unavoidable path between two places that must be traveled to the end to reach the new land from the old is a much less pointless method and surely vital.

Or better yet, perhaps not a strait between two oceans of emptiness and fullness, but a ring! Endlessly living, through and through. From the everlasting and continue to the never-ending.

A Plato's perfect circle!

I have a childlike outlook
A hand drawn interpretation of life
But it is your warm and reassuring love
That adds all the color to my blank coloring book

A Scar
By: Yue **** Yitkbel

I walk slow
Light-feeted and soft
So as not to disturb the sentiments

I walk silently
Traceless like the wind
So as not to leave a scar

Even though you are away
I will still stay
Waiting for that one inevitably unexpecting day
When you mindlessly pass my way
And finally,
Abruptly,
Steal my wanderlust soul astray.

I finally realize
My dream was never
To break away from
The world
As stardust of
Once upon dreams
Waiting to be reborn
Into the hearts of
A billion souls
That will touch upon the world
As it has never touch upon mine

But to take the storm of the universe
With all of its glorious aches and sorrows
Not for the world to one day remember me by
But just to able to shield one fragile little star
Within the palms of my hands
Savoring the warmth
Of giving all of your love
To a singular seemingly insignificant
Being

To not refuse the world
Or one day
Be a bigger part of the world
But to cradle
A World in the soft palms
Of my callous hands
Giving it all
Keeping it warm
Against the howling wind
Of indifference

Let me see you before you appear
Let me hear you before you speak
Let me understand you before you
Attempt to connect with me
Let me leave you before you stay
Let me hide away before you see me
Let me keep an impression of you
Before you give it away
Let me fade away before
You remember me
Always
Faint and resolute
From the innocent days.

I want to bury my soul in your loneliness to spring a beautiful dandelion of your happiness.

Beyond the Veil of Our Inverted Universe:

I must wander

Beyond the thinnest part

Of our inverted universe

As we are outside of living


Living the whole of a dream

While dreaming

Fragments of

The Mirror of

‘Reality’


Truth is only to be felt

For we see

Only what we wanted to see

And think

Only what we wanted to think


But only feelings

From sparks of infatuation

To chasms of the deepest sorrow

Is authentic

In and of itself

Mercilessly

Beyond our desperate

Need for control


And there

Beyond the veil

Of false possessions

And

Expectations



Is

You


The authentic truth

Of

You


Beyond all thoughts

Rationality and

Physicality


Merely an intense feeling

Intertwined

With the untamed feeling of me


Two branches of lightning

Bursting through pure darkness

Briefly revealing the

Landscape of our universe

With the collision

Of our pure

Being






















When the Sleeper Wakes in Sleep:

When the sleeper ‘sleeps’

He wakes, on the other side

Of Plato’s Cave

And sees time and time again

Often in fragmented consciousness

The world that truly is

“Bigger on the ‘inside’”

“Smaller on the ‘outside’”


It’s like forever standing

Within a mirrored cylinder ring

Keeping faith to its seeming

Infinity

Even though only

Reflections are being seen


Reflections of the

Geometry of love

Thoughts

Unseen beings

Consciousness

And

Gravity


These and more

Floats around the exterior

Of this thin fabric of reality

Bumping into us occasionally

Letting us feel its obscured shape

But never witness its true property


Only through momentary slumber

When we open our minds eye

And peeks at the other side

When we drift away-

Unguarded by our perspective-

Through all of spacetime

And drift closer to the veil

As if through a plastic foil

Can we see and softly touch

The ‘matters’ of truth in life


See the wrinkles

And ripples in time?

That’s where runaway dreams

And forgotten past hide

You will see yours

And even all of mine


That’s why I can live

Again and again your happiness

And joys of mine

With near absolute clarity

Manifested through twinges

And longing

With the help of the night


That’s why

When the sleeper ‘wakes’

He can no longer

Bear this world of bright shadows

And must rush back

To the brilliant world

Under the dark sunlight


That's why

I leave the lies for the morning

And truth for the night

When you're weary of

My dazzling praises

You can dream among

The starry sentiments

Of my moonless sky






















A Brief History of that Muse Song:

The weight of thoughts

We hold deep within

Gather and increase in mass

Till we’re beings of immense gravity

Attracted at the moment of first contact

Never letting go


Even through the unseeable distance

I can still feel your pull-

Feel time stretch into infinity

Feel nothing else within my hold-

From our fateful event horizon


Even though we’re both vessels

Of very little voices

We’re far from empty

We’re far from silent-

With every unspoken word-

Not let out to wander and

Disperse-

We bear the roaring wrath

Of neutron stars deep within

Our Soul


And such

Is our ‘Density’






















Purity:

I believe that

Names can physically

Mold a being

Without human intentions

As accidental drops of ink

Muddies the water

Yours follow the opposite

And being true to its essence

You are indeed eternally ‘PURE’


Pure, in the winter lakes

Of your soft pensive eyes

Color of the earth, the dust of existing


Pure, in the crescent

Of your laughing eyes

Hiding no sorrow

Dragging me along with you

When it descends


Pure

In the ripples of your soul

As I felt every drop

Seen in your dazzling smile

Unseen, in the dreamer’s dream


And I, indeed a dreamer

The ‘MOON’, the ‘STARS’, and

‘A MYTHICAL JEWEL’

That radiates not

Within or without

Except under or carrying

Your light


If only I can be your moon

A source of comfort but

Only at your darkest

Never to steal your shine


Except

I am merely a solitary bird

In love with the spotless lofty sky


I may praise it

And lament in its silence

But I can never caress it

Possess it or even

Comfort it


So it shall be

For even a storm of the sweetest dreams

Might taint the purity of a cloudless night

I must wander

Beyond the thinnest part

Of our inverted universe

As we are outside of living


Living the whole of a dream

While dreaming

Fragments of

The Mirror of

‘Reality’


Truth is only to be felt

For we see

Only what we wanted to see

And think

Only what we wanted to think


But only feelings

From sparks of infatuation

To chasms of the deepest sorrow

Is authentic

In and of itself

Mercilessly

Beyond our desperate

Need for control


And there

Beyond the veil

Of false possessions

And

Expectations



Is

You


The authentic truth

Of

You


Beyond all thoughts

Rationality and

Physicality


Merely an intense feeling

Intertwined

With the untamed feeling of me


Two branches of lightning

Bursting through pure darkness

Briefly revealing the

Landscape of our universe

With the collision

Of our pure

Being

I love your silence because I can hear everything.

We are not all born from the light of a thousand spotless suns.
And in the darkness, we wronged, asked for
forgiveness but could not amend the past.
Eventually, we bloom, with learned righteousness, and shined with a new light.

Yet, sometimes, we still wondered, if it is too
late, if we are forever condemned to our childish sins, and naïve hatred, and in the light of those better than us, will we ever be blessed with glad acceptance, or will we be forever segregated for
our past inevitable faults.

We can’t change the past, yet hold on to them,
until the dream of afterlife relieves us from
these mortal coils.
We can build the future, but sometimes only to hide our spectres and cover our tracks.
Will time truly heal the broken Earth with new dust, and tarnish the scars we inflicted upon each other?
In the end, what is our end? For what do we
strive, when all have exhausted, there’s nothing to remember us with, except for-from dust to dust-the words in the wind.

And so, we have to find our happiness in the
living, the moment, and for once, not haunted by the past, and fear for our future. For once, we
want to be content in the present, for the "now" is no longer unkept promises, and successful failures; fading hopefulness, and endless waiting for the beginning of the tale, when there is no story.

We started the search in our past, but the answer will forever be in the present, and our future, forever in the moment.

I am still chasing the butterfly dream;
I had it in my hands momentarily
all those years ago
When I was just a child
but it flew away, and never came back.
I thought it would visit again
the same time every year,
but one year turned into two,
two years turned into five,
six, nine, ten.
It never came back.

Yet, almost twenty years later,
I am still here,
waiting for a miracle,
Just so I can finally ask it:
“where did you go?
and where did you take
my childlike happiness?”
I had to replace it with this fake laughter
I perfected years ago.

Your souls are the seeds in the wind

I open my arms wide

Hoping to catch them in my dreams

I can barely see them
                  Their very presence

But I can feel them

Rippling through me

Blooming

Ever-expanding

Tiny specks of twinges of love

That form

Brief little lightning

                                    Giving me life

Do you get caught off guard by life
As if it were a dream-
A fleeting moment-
Caught off guard in motion
Caught off guard by the poetry
That pours out of you
Involuntarily and incessantly?

Like when your pressure blocked ear
Suddenly opens and you realize
You are finally truly hearing for the
Very first time

Your closely watched soul
Suddenly sees the light unguarded by you
And fearlessly
It embraces life

I was caught off guard by you
In that moment of total vulnerability
Undefended by fear
And was conquered unconditionally
Forever by the thoughtless love

Introduction:

If I, with my childlike mind, thus
Interpret Hawking’s analogy here
Of the Universum Infinitus
Not as a fringeless sphere
But as he described, like the surface
Of our beloved planet Earth

Then, the only place
That is beyond time and space
That is with-out time and space
Must be hidden within
Forever, within
Eternity’s grace

What would we see,
If we left Plato’s cave
Into the Perfect Circle
As if through the looking glass
See all of life and existence
For what it was
Without our restricting frame of
Reference:
Our Consciousness
Fear and awareness of change
And loss
Without fear of the light,
Because we were shielded
By the shadows on the walls
For too long?

I

Through the perfectly lucid concave
I saw every String and every way
I saw the river of time, the ring of time
Unified
I saw it ebbs and flows, without death
And seemingly, forever alive

Humanity, consciousness, swim freely
But each soul stay in place, yet as
The river itself moves, and changes,
No one ever ceases to move

As St.Augustine deducted:
Time is the awareness of change
Something must come from
The Future
And
It will unstoppably pass into
The Past

The Present
Is almost nonexistent
Ever within one indivisible
Moment
Thus,
Time is meaningless to God
Time only exists for us
For it is what is gained
And what is immediately lost
TIME doesn’t exist for the eternal

II

Over time, I noticed something This River Time on the other sideSeems to be changing over nightIts flow becoming slower and slowerYetIts waves becoming wider and widerTill less steps is necessary To be able to cross over time     

We measure time by change
But even change is quickly
Changing
Becoming more and more often
More and more senile and forgetful

Is TIME ageing? Dying?
Is the river of time becoming
More and more viscous
As the sentiments build-up
Becoming more and more
Like milk or even honey?

III

Century is the new millennium!
If we measure the river of time
By section or meters of changes
Then, surely we can see that
As the flow of the denser and denser
Bodies of water slow down
Quicker and quicker
What used to be a thousand waves,
Or a thousand years
Is now a hundred waves
Or a hundred years:

If each fixed section or meter
Is marked by a great shift
Paradigm shift or
Great Change
Then
It is clear that the younger time
Used to take shorter, quicker,
Steps
And as it grows and ages
His steps become steady and slowerBut each stride becoming longer 
Thus travels faster
Till only in about a hundred paces
Would he encounter another
Lamppost,
As opposed to Olden Day’s
Every thousand paces

Conclusion:

Time is Consciousness
Or Awareness of change
For if nothing dies, arrives,
Then the constant present
Is forever a place without time

What if the speed of change changes
What happens when change
Seems to be coming quicker
And quicker?

Is change coming towards us
Or are we flowing towards change

Is time ageing?
Is our conscious awareness of
Change
Moving in greater and greater
Strides?
Moving from thousands of years
To hundreds
To decades
To months, weeks,
Days?

Would such a frequency
Exhaust time itself to death?

And grants us our search
For eternity
Not for us to live unbelievably
To age beyond Adam’s 930
But for us, within a hundred years,
A decade, year, month, day,
Hours, seconds
Experience all possible changes
Till we lose it all,
Till no more changes could occur
And
Forever stills the Status Quo.

We are experiencing it now,
Quicker and quicker
From a thousand years old
To a hundred years old
From centuries of greatness
To fifteen minutes of fame
To weeks of love
And endless separation
Till we exhaust it all
Ran all the way
To end up in the
Land of Waste

Or find a way
Beyond the cave
Into the unfathomable
Perfect Circle
Beyond loss, beyond change

Either way,
We will end up in a place
Beyond Time and Space

Sometimes
I think I can hear you loud and clear
On the other end
Of this channeling soul.

But I am always deathly afraid
That it's just meaningless
Perpetual echoes
Circling within my own
Closed and hollow
Inescapably fragile
Heart.

I am not a poet,
Or any wise man of the sort.
I am just a child in love,
Lost within words.

Draw me with a pencil
Erase me when you've been lured by the next leaf

Color me with chalks
Wash me away when you've been longed by your keep

Hum me with a mindless tune
Forget me when you flirt with your keys

Build me with dust and rain
Break me when you are needed by the warmth and heat

But never ever leave
Those things only love you so casually
But, me
Without you,
I'd cease to be.

Originally written in Chinese, and translated to English by:

Yitkbel ****

Date of Original Chinese Version: March 25, 2021

Date of Translation: April 4, 2021 Easter Sunday



I.


Sailing upon new waves,

Post Modernity's Wake,

The 'wise men' arrive upon the Isle,

Isle of the Children Faithful and Wild,

Ascend the Peaks of Antiquity,

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

With New Clothes and New Shades,

Conceal the eternal Splendid rays.


They say,

'This is the Dusk of Illusion!'

'The Dawn of Disillusion!'

'Gone with the Ageless Eternity,

Behold the Age of Humanity!'


Stealing light with a sleight of hand,

As shadow disembark upon the land,


They say,

'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


The long night arrives,

Lingering, while daylight

Dissipates.


II.


Dreaming in the New Cave,

Never to the sun, awake,

The young fog stolen away

The old path and old ways.

Darkness roars, Ennui soars.

The Songs of Seeds cease.

Lost without light's embrace.

A thousand crows' throats brace,

Wings replace the sky's face,

So the children forget its grace.


They sing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They sing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of "Depth",

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!


III.


The 'wise men',

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

Finally taught the 'wayward child'-

'Too naive' 'Too faithful' 'Too wild'-

To gaze upon their shadow beneath,

Beneath their feet,

And say:

'That's all there is,

All there will be.'


Way above,

Above the fog, above the clouds,

Above the stars, above it all,

Manifolds of souls witnessing,

These wise men standing tall,

With their boastful clarion call,

Upon a speck of dust, believing,

It to be everything and nothing

Else.


They turn back, back to the Waiting

Of the Death of Time, Of the Death of Time,

As the crows carry on with their carrion rhyme.

They carry on, they carry on, singing:


'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Gaze upon your shadow beneath your feet!'

'That's all there is, And all there will be.'



How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of 'Depth',

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!



Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

I see words of lost hope and dead dreams
Sprawled around the earth
Like ashes and dust
Ready to sacrifice itself
to spring
A new wave of short lived aspirations

But dreams doesn't just die
It doesn't cease to exist in the moment of revelation
It remains, cinders in the ash pit
Ready at any moment,
To spring back to life
With the full force of  
the once zealous flame
Still perfectly alive at its core.

I was that empty little pail
With a hole in my heart
Draining my life away
and
You were that piece of clay
that allowed all of the water to stay.

Except, the water that stayed
Didn't watch its way
Overflowed and washed away the clay
Now
Once again
Broken and in decay
The soul in me drained away

Ant Farm of Forever Encased in Ember

By: Yitkbel


Written: Sunday, February 16, 2025


Ant Farm of Forever

I.

It's getting early and it's getting late,
Far from midnight and closer to day.
You're wide awake, always the same,
Your soul drenched in love and fear,
Or dread as they say.

1.

You're daydreaming with your heart again,
Of all the ifs and whens.
And all the dearest whom, and where too.
They were faster travelers than you;
I guess they had to go.
But where to?
You ask, and it's no use.
You're standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.
There's no one to answer you.
Are they traceless,
Except for the traces of memories,
And all the pains of love
Clinging by threads of regret to you?
"Could I trace my way back to them,
Or would these traces leave me too? "
I wish I knew,
I too, am standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.

2.

Have we wandered off too far,
And crossed the threshold?
I can still feel the cold,
But this is a sight to behold.
This is a place devoid of time,
But definitely not life:

See, the barley runs up to the sky,
Waltzing between the old oaks,
Rushing to reach the light.
The pink and blue light,
Swirling about,
Curtaining the shadows,
Behind the clouds.

Have we been left behind?
You know we can fly,
When we're not reality-bind,
Could we reach them in time?
Would I
Would I
Be always left behind?
The child in me cried.
As our feet begin to hover,
And leave the land behind.

3.

It didn't take long to reach the divide,
And when you pushed what felt like
A curtain of cotton aside.
I saw the lines.
These must be the shadows
From your dream of dreams,
And dream of life.
You searched and searched
For a familiar face,
And familiar eyes.
But this place is too vast,
This place to wide.
They are innumerable,
And only one of each,
Of you and I.

So we remain,
Strangers in this strange tide.
Wondering why.
What is the purpose
Of this winding line,
When someone, somewhere,
After some time-
If you can say that
In place it isn't defined-
Handed down a gift
To every him and her,
An ant farm of forever,
Encased in ember.
Did you see the glint in the center?
Illuminating some ant inside.
Whose eyes is it reflecting off
I wonder?
It's rather familiar, I gather,
Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it his?
Is it hers?
Is it…
Don't you remember?
This is all of your time enclosed in ember!
Where your soul may freely wander!

II.

Those swarms of forgotten fireflies
Under that bike stand lights,
Those violet skies pulsating with
A unshakable fear of the unknown
In your naive mind,
Those galactic rides that you never questioned,
Whether they existed beyond the orange city lights,
Those callous hands and wizened eyes,
You were so afraid to be hopeful of seeing
Again
Beyond time, are
There,
At the end of the winding line,
And here,
In your hands,
In this Ant Farm of Forever,
Encased in Ember,
For you to freely wander-
All the choices you have made,
All the love you have loved,
That refuse to fade,
All the senseless days,
You wondered why you must face,
When you thought they will never stay,
Anyway.
Yet, here they are,
Basking in the sun rays.
Glistening with unobscured light.
Just like those same old,
Timeless times.
When the most earthly beings
When the most earthly things,
Were perfectly divine.

You are the full moon in my starless night
As I look for the light lost on the way to my safe keep

You are the tender whispering among the sharp laughters of mockery that grips my soul so softly and loudly

You are the warm tears rolling down my wintry cheeks I kept bare so long and
So numbly

You are the intoxicating reverie in my tumultuously violent and destructive thoughts oceans deep

You are the warm cup of tea
I hold in my stubborn hands as I freeze in the cold running to thee

You are
You are...

You are all that I wanted to keep  
Everlastingly

But only come once in awhile so
Unexpectedly

Still,  I grip onto you tightly
In shattering broken pieces

Just so I can be drenched in those orgastic moments bare and
Completely

Consciousness is decay

Consciousness is atrophy

Consciousness itself is ‘DEATH’


[Consciousness]


Perhaps suffering

Is not the result of

Divine punishment


But ‘the fruit’ itself

The pain

The poison


For time is no object

A mere space and place

The lack of

For events and

Ever Changing ‘reality’

To be


There is no ‘cease to be’

But

Only complete transformations


Awareness

Consciousness

Measures the transformations

Eternal transformations

With finite increments

Of time

Decay

Atrophy

And

DEATH



Consciousness

Must measure

And limit itself

Likewise


For eternity

Is

The ‘death’ of

Consciousness

Or lack thereof


[The Cave]


And the sweet hereafter-

The full escape from

The shadowy cave

Of imprisoning

Awareness

‘Consciousness’-

Will be forever unimaginable

For the exterior scenery

Must be that which

This conscious world is not

With absolute free will

And yet

No absolutes

Free

Or

Will


[The Tunnel]


Between the seemingly

Infinite cave

And

The ‘objective reality’

The truly endless lofty sky

There is a long

But narrow tunnel of

Nothingness

That must be crossed


The Aging mind

Is like the overgrowth

Blocking our view of

On either side

And the search for truth

Of either reality

Shadows or sunlight

Clears the view

Looking towards the cleared

Side


[The Escape]


A full escape of no return

Is the end of consciousness

And

‘Waking’ from the ultimate

‘DREAM’


[Keep Dreaming till the Daylight]


You may wonder

What is the use then to

Keep dreaming?

What is the use to limit ourselves

To the good solely.


But,

As we all know

No matter how perfect

The ‘real’ world is

There is no harm

Savoring the sweetest

Illusion for the time being

And make it as sweet as

Can be


[Nobody likes a Nightmare]


Consciousness is a dream

But we can still

And should still

Make it the greatest

Reverie

Craving Paradise
By: Lucian Huw Benedict

I built a paradise out of despair too desperate
Too empty, too silent, I only hear the echoing
Reveries, Fantasies, The Angels are singing
As if so near yet so distant



I built a cathedral with my desires
Above all creations, through the windows forever higher
I am burning, drowning in warmth that's not there
Yet I am letting it heal the pain, pouring down Gilded Rain



I crave heaven, snowflakes and stardust of heavens
Yet, I am burning in hell, as
A sinning believer kneeling in the spotlight of Benevolence
Gazing at the white dove, my sight follows it to heaven
Leaving me at lost
My shadows escape, running in two directions
"Are you heading to the quiet paradise?"
"Or to pay your debt in hell, My Conscience”



I saw the angel's innocence with my mind’s eye
Too blurry, too abstract, a mirage's city reigns
Begging, For the Fortune Wheel's Turning Tides
I used my illusions to reverse back the flown kite,
And went back to a Dreamer's night



I wrote rhapsody with a fantasia
A Silent Solo, I can't hear the melancholia
Silent Melancholia
Peaceful, *******, I take off the camouflage
And Play the last desperate tune
Between Heaven and Earth, Up and Down



I crave heaven, lights and warmth of paradise
But am simmering in hell, like the
Sinner in Purgatory aflame in a ray of righteousness
The most sorrowful thunder roars in turmoil among the raging clouds
Just a flight of solitary plight
He spreads open different wings
Crimson light and White shines
Tears him between the Inferno and Paradise

Our love grew
Blossomed
Not into a short lived rose
With all its possessive beauty
But into an untouchable
Dandelion
With the gale of time
Carrying it away as soon
We attempt to hold it too dearly
Too closely.

The seeds of memories escape us
But they don't cease to exist
They may drift away
But they will drift back down to earth
Gradually and quietly
Transforming the barren of our minds
Into a beautiful and fertile land
Unending.

Empty inbox filled with spam
      Desperate posts with no replies
            Old friend that's just a contact
                    
Streets that are just park lots
     Playgrounds built for geese and ghosts
             Delicate souls hidden in the drive thru

Forgotten songs set as ringtones
      Refreshing the page for hours
            But nothing ever changes when you need it to

And here I am writing love poems and letters
      Never to be read by you as intended
           But keyboards, screens, and those feeling just as alone

I wish I never moved in too close,
that there were still a distance between us,
for me to feel that pull of my soul.

The summit has not been obscured
By other towering dreams
Peaks of higher aspirations I cannot help
But want to cross and conquer
Or a swarm of warm mist
That seems to disperse whenever I am near
Never letting me close enough
To feel the comfort of its numbness and unawareness
The safety of the oblivion and the oblivious

Instead, I see everything so starkly
And unquestionably clear without a seam
For even a sprout of my readily self-deception
To thrive-
The minute green that would only let me see
Its specks of hope and grains of chance
While hiding away the monolith of impenetrable
Impossibility-

No, I no longer see my age old distant reveries
The yonder fading waves of rolling hills
That seemed destined to be mine
The distant mirage I only chased
Because it was a custom to be chasing
They have all been wiped from my mind
By a sudden total eclipse of presence

I have woken up, and forgot what my dreams were
I have arrived on the other side and saw nothing
But the same fields of scattered shrubs and
Abandoned trails

Perhaps it is only I, who’s lost
While everyone else have arrived at their destination

I have not stopped walking-
Towards you, towards life-
Though I have slowed my steps
And paused constantly, to look back
At every step I have taken
Every direction I could have taken
Every route others took
Every footprint that is not mine
I looked at every path I’d strayed
And wondered if I should have stayed
Wondered if I should have went a different way

My every thought flowed over me
Filled in the faults and valleys of my every step
Ebbed away from the path I never doubted
Was the way
Drowned every blade of grass, and
Washed away my conviction
And sent me down the stream back into my
More innocent days

Except, this time, I did not find myself
At the foot of a smaller hill
But, within a pit of pure darkness where
I could see the light, shining on everyone
And everything, but none could reach me
It showed me where I have failed
And where others have succeeded
Every immovable rock I have missed
And every rotten branch I have grabbed instead

I asked the light to spare some for me
Hoping to see everything
Instead it asked me where I most wanted to be
And I pointed up to the summit I thought
Where you were most likely to be
It did not show me a path straight to thee
But every stone that’s strong and sturdy
And told me not to look back or
Too widely around me
Not to question whether the path is the path to be
And stray from my sight to thee
For even if I never reach the place I wanted to be
I will never be lost,
Or be devoured mercilessly by the darkness
That’s everything behind me.

A Love Letter to Lost Tattered Souls

I.

Why do I so desperately desire recognition
When I know full well glory is beyond time
Even hither
Praises too early gained would
Place one above all in the midst
Of the wheel of fate
Yet
Soon or later with only room to fall
And be crushed by the
Cruel reality
Of eventual and inevitable
Tedium

Unlike a life ever on the climb
Or of a timely return to the everlasting
That will be never be subjected to
The suffocating dread
Of such a loss
Of height

As
The roaring gale would always lose to
The ever-present calm wind
Vital yet unnoticed like the breath of being

And

II.

Why do I despair when my words
Don't glitter like gold
That would make wise men
Lament in fist-raising envy
And mock the children that
Don't understand them

When I know the truth are
In words that would move children
To tears of laughter
And laughter of comfort
As per The Word
That is equally
Ridicule by men
Of ashes and dust-
That will never understand-
Or remain upon-
This world-
As something beneath them-

Like the earth that supports
All living creatures
And the humble grass for lambs
To graze

Be the needed
Not the desired
But unnecessary

And


III.

Why would I feel shame to wail in despair
Beyond my control for a word of your love
When
What is love, without patience in suffering,
What is suffering without pain?
And what is pain without complaint?
There are truth and devotion in my lament
A testament of my bearing the constant silence
Yet still singing devotedly forever
For the suffering Nevermore

Love fearlessly your overlooked
Plain imperfections
And unbloomed seeds of poetry
Burrowed in the present land of a future
Undying forest
Far outlasting the abandoned and
Overgrown gardens of timely praises
That's now lost in maintenance
And translation

As with the minute storms
And only half-day suns
You don't want to plant your love
In bricks of spotless silver and gold
Nor do you want to bury them
In scorched earth
That have never greeted a
Raindrop or the
Stars

I am a soul of fragments,
Of the minuscule,
Of the details.
I want to be a great sea of ceaseless poetry,
But always focus on the small, the unnecessary.

I am touched by every soul,
And they live on through me,
Sometimes it's not just me, but
We are all afraid of seeing other's words
Other's mark on us,
But we must embrace freely
The past and the contemporary,
Just as we can't all reinvent LANGUAGES independently,  
We can't have souls that rather be silent
Than to create.

I am merely the temporary vessel
Taking whatever is exterior to me
In the river of all the creations
Letting them combine
And
Flow together freely
And pour them back out again
Back into Creation.
Back into the great water of poetry,
Waiting to be fearlessly
Borne
Into another wave.

Have you ever dreamt of the ocean
And then being presented with a plate of fish
Have you ever dreamt of an old friend
And then welcomed them at your door
The very next day
Have you ever left a place of comfort
In search of better dreams
Only to find that you still remain there
Within your dream of a dream
And could only find comfort in
Returning to the same old place
In the sleep of real life

Have you ever dreamt of love that filled your Whole being with a sweet essence that lasts
The entire enchanted day
And wondered if it was
Mutual longings

I have mastered the skill to predict reaching messages from an old friend
By the reunions in my dreams
Since she always reconnect with me
The very next day
And
Always took hints from my dreams
On what to write
What to say
Or even what to do

I live in another sentient world
In my dreams
A world not like
Yet not unlike ours
A world beyond the mirror.
A world perhaps beyond
The reflective fabric of our own reality.

(Dream is a mirror that goes both ways, and like a mirror, when you know what to do with it, you can use it to your own advantage. And it works very well too.)

Our thoughts
Our inner most fear, loathing and desires
Form little bumps
Lines and dots
In the reflective fabric of our reality
It's the Morse Code of Our Souls
And dream is an interpreter.

That's why when you miss me
I will dream of you so
Message received.

"I feel things
Different things in different
Volumes, shapes and forms
That I interpret to be messages
Or signals
Rather than mere one sided
Mental and psychological manifestation
On my part
Or
Wishful thinking

I have assigned
Or rather
I have noticed a pattern
Among the differing
Twinges and pangs
I have experienced

Some were felt clearly
As a result of some
Action on my part
As I were the one
Conjuring up thoughts
About the receiving
Subject

Others,
However
Were sudden
And unprovoked
And these
Are what I perceive
As
Messages
Communication from
The Exterior
Of one's own mind

For that.
Although
Unexplainable
When one feels
True intuitive guidances
One knows."

I dwell in the past, standing on flecks of dust.

I won't cross the line
I won't get too close
But I will be here
Waiting
Waiting for you
In the familiar distance
Until you come back around
Until I am nothing
But the dust in the wind.

Perhaps then,
I can finally caress you
Caress your coat
Caress your shadow
Caress your smile
Caress your soul
Fierce and eternally.