Did you see
My portrait?

Tiny figure in a corner of
Mountains and lakes

This is who I am

Small

Not

Insignificant

My father and mother gave me life.
Father contributed maybe just a minute;
His effort made life happen to me
Then he mostly cast me adrift in it.
Mother took longer to have me
But cared even less for me it seems
And after she did what she had to do
She just cared about her own dreams.

Life can be painful if you’re an orphan
Uncared for, unwanted and a pain.
It’s almost like people hold living against you
When they see you coming around once again.
Believe me, this is not what I wanted;
Always to be the flat fifth wheel.
I don’t know what else could have happened
But I have always aware of what I feel.

I developed a lifelong hatred of imposing,
Of asking something when not welcome.
I did what I could to show gratitude
But somehow I was taken as loathsome.
It was almost as if to know me was to hate me
And the best thing I could do was to be gone.
To make myself scarce from the party.
My best trick was just me moving on.

So, early in life, I started collecting
A brand-new batch of my family.
I only kept around those with no problem
Letting me know that they treasured me.
I stopped keeping track of the careless,
The users that only wanted what I had.
I turned my ears deaf to any naysayers
And ever since then I have been glad.

Christmas stopped being painful or lonely
With loneliness or abuse being the theme.
I joined in the traditions and merriment
And made holidays the fun they should seem.
I had my decorations and stockings hung up
On the mantel of a home of my very own.
And for those who didn’t care much for me
I wish them a Happy Twilight Zone.

Actually

What you see
Isn’t me
And what I see
Isn’t me

Actually

My actual ‘I’
Will not be seen
By ordinary eyes

Actually

This is why
I meditate
To eliminate
The pretentious
Preposterous
Imposter

       Sean Hunt    Dec 2016 Windermere, UK

We have been protected
By our circumstances
Never free
To take that chance
To dance
With wild abandon
On the edge of the cliff
From which
All lovers fall
We have been blessed
And destined
To remain
Potential lovers

Our imaginations
Wrote a happy script
Craziness and pain
Were not part of it


         Sean Hunt    
Dec 2016 Windermere

I am no Vincent Van Goh.
Even though, I know
his dark lows,
and manic heights,
the painful trips
that haunted him
so long ago
are partly mine
to show in the growth
of my artistic soul.

I am no Edgar Allen Poe.
Even though, I know
similar melancholic moods
and addictive attitudes.
He is a part of my
personal history
of great things
that inspired me
and everything I write
has a part of the spark
that was once his heart
of darkness and light.

I am no Leonardo Da Vinci.
Even though, I share
his deep scientific curiosity
and inconsistent creativity.
I grow and flow poetically
as he did transitioning
from one grand passion to the next
obsessed then moving beyond
that which spawned
such obsession.

In life death and art
there are so many
who are a part of me
people I will never see
or live to be.
I am me……..
with all my painful parallels
on the same journey
just riding a different track.

one of the Orient’s oldest
and most beautiful important cities
inhabited for thousands of years
by generations after generations
of craftsmen, merchants, artists, dynasties,
famous architects of all styles and religions,
the western end of the old silk road
home to over 2 million citizens
until not long ago

a few weeks of modern warfare
were enough to destroy
what hundreds of generations had built
for their living as well as their sense of beauty

     rockets exploded churches, temples, and mosques
     artillery pulverized ancient palaces and new houses

     barrel bombs and poison gas
     killed the people

on tv we now see acres of urban wasteland
miles of rubble with no life
except for occasional tanks and soldiers
proclaiming victory over these ruins
in the name of a dictator whose regime
has become a puppet in global power games
no matter what the cost in lives or things

     to destroy is easy
     building things up is hard work

     with friends like these
     who needs enemies

We are a species
with the ability
for self-directed
evolution.
We can decide
what qualities
are propagated.
We can be educated
not anesthetized by media lies.

We can be better
if we choose to be,
when we choose to be.

We can be
a great collective,
a shining light
that spans the stars,
extolling
the virtues
of creativity,
compassion,
and curiosity.

We can be
the heart
of humanistic priorities
that values
all of humanity
and treasures
this reality.

Soowee, soowee. Top of our lungs
That’s how we used to call the hogs
And every time they would come,
Running just like well trained dogs,
Because they knew it meant food
Even though that food was just slop,
Those pigs have nothing like taste.
But nothing could make them stop.

Lately I have noticed human beings
Who seem to behave the same way.
They gobble the media slop they hear
Every day after mind-numbing day.
They too seem to have no taste
And smell something they really dig;
Nothing any sensible creature eats
But it seems to be ambrosia to a pig.

Squee, squee, squee they snort
And salivate, squeal and chow down
On the unpalatable pap served up
By the greedy media super-clowns.
It’s almost like they would pass up
A meal of honest, unvarnished truth
To gorge themselves to a stupor
On the crap they loved as a youth.

I’m always surprised that these folks,
This metaphoric, too human swine
Don’t go out in public in pajamas
Like worn by young neighbors of mine
With cartoon mice and supermen
Instead of the clothes of an adult.
They go vote like uninformed fools.
And current Congress is the result.