It is a lonely voice that cries out into the night, seeking its own echoes, longing for a shadow that reflects its mournful lamentation.  Are you there? Am I truly here? What is the point of this fruitless struggle if I am bound by flesh and destined to die? I cannot crack the code of destiny; though sometimes I can divine just a spark of hope from inspiration. I pay the steepest penance for my arrogance. While others can cloud their minds with the daily confusion, I am humbled by how little I truly know.                        

            However, I remain if just for this fleeting moment a mortal attached to the plane of matter and energy. Life holds boundless possibilities beyond my ability to imagine. So with my limited faculty I imagine something better. I picture love transcendent, Love that feels without desire, Love that lives without want of ownership. I give you, the world I adore, the greatest gift that I have to offer. I cannot send you cash nor will I conceive to write my feelings with the way of war and bloodshed. What I have is in essence what I am, so I give you love, and hope that you cherish it. For this love is fragile and precious. This love is the best of me and now it belongs to you.

This is not some poem. This is pure truth. Right now I am crying , because no matter how hard I speak and write love my country keeps arming up for war, and attacking the army for its vile acts of barbarity is apparently like attacking a religion because people worship the military and soldiers.
How many ******* times do I have to cry love while other cry war till people listen. I am so emotionally exhausted but my pain is irrelevant compared to the victims of America's policies which are almost always enacted in the interest of the wealthy.

The poet philosopher is more daring by far. For their is no par to hit, no height to attain or place where he/she may fit. All there is, is to see, feel, breath, think, and write it.

Perhaps we should take comfort in our insignificance. The universe is indifferent. It neither needs or care for our existence. All the reason we need to care about one another is that our existence is so transient. It is most likely we will not revisit this or any other life, so why not treasure those by our side, and be kind to strangers for that reason alone.

If it is a race, then the pace of one set of clouds out does the ones that float above lazily. Smokey dragons cut across Odin’s one good godly eye. The night pursues its cold cool wind muse,
and I cannot lose, because I use this muse so well. I walk the building corner to brick corner unwilling to enter the unyielding nightmare hallways. I do not wish to walk in the white hollow echo chambers, alone and uninspired while the night spirals in lunar delight. I postpone it as long as I can, walking the yellow concrete corners like they are tight high wire. I swerve and struggle to maintain my perfect position, for fear of falling into the black top lava pit. The inside world waits for me like a ravenous beast. Please oh please do not force me to leave the light breeze that brushes my skin gently. Glass and metal doors see me swallowed whole. I did not want to go but now I know this white washed world will be my graveyard fantasy. The red buds on the tree beckon me, but I cannot go back out. The musical clank of metal clips that hang the flags summons me beyond the security doors with their dangerous whipping movements, but I am not allow to explore such freedom. The strangers of varying degrees, shapes, weights, skin tints, hair, and teeth beckons me to question their history. I cannot go out there to the fantastic. No that is a lie. I could if I tried, but I chose to hide in a secure hourly wage paid life. I could leave and let my wanderlust take me where it will. I could go back to Pleasantville, Champaign, Williamsville, Pontiac, Mt. Vernon, and Danville, then go see places I have never been. I could give in to the seductive siren call of landscapes unseen, sounds unheard, and strangers not yet met. Instead I sign my time sheet, walk and repeat, securing nothing. I drive home tired and come back and repeat that as well. I accept the mundane. It is a part of the price I pay for a slice of peace.

And if perchance you do allow. I will curve those lip while I furrow my brow. I will split your serious demeanor with a clownish tact, making a joke you have laugh at, and if a chuckle  refuses to arise, all sink so low as to do the pull my finger bit because that one get all the girls and guys to laugh then leave the room choking.

I know it is not much, but I give to the people on the side of the road. If I have an apple or three, a couple of bananas, avocadoes, or anything that I can afford to pass on without making it so I do not have something to eat that day, anything in my car at the time that is not already been chewed on is fair game for my compassion, in passing it on to someone who might not have had anything to eat.
I do not feel pride for this actions, because to many times I rush by in a hurry to somewhere else, or all I have is my lunch for work. It hurts me to know that this stranger on the side of the road may not get anything to eat.
So, here are two things that rub me the wrong way. Firstly, when people think someone else will help. It is so easy just to walk, or drive by cause you think the next guy will help, but what if they don’t? What if that extra apple that you ended up tossing away anyways could have assuaged someone’s pain even for an hour or so. What if despite not being enough to fill that person’s stomach up your kindness was the light that slightly brightened an otherwise painful and lonely day? Secondly, when people say that this person is probably trying to scam you. So what if they are, their potential deceit will not lessen my overall desire to be compassionate, because what if they next person I would have helped truly needed it and I refused because I was jaded? Hell, how about if that person that you were so suspicious of was truly needy? This fog of distrust of those in need has clouded our communities, cities, states, and this country that some claim they desire to make great again.
Maybe my heart bleeds a little too much because I have been hungry, and alone before. But haven’t you ever been hungry, scared, lonely, or in pain? Why dismiss the suffering of others when you know pain? It is our capacity for creativity, and compassion that makes us great. It is the art of reading, seeing, or merely thinking that allows us to switch places and to a degree feel what other’s feels that makes us human. Please find that part of yourself and once you do, do not allow that part of yourself to be lost.

Someone whispers to him “calm your heart,” but the crimson streaked flesh that beats soft wet palpitations hastens his impatience to face what’s coming. He has no armor or weapon only the determination to do what is right.
      Four chambers are thudding like the boots a coming. Men in black garbs marching with fully loaded chambers, clear plastic shields up, and black sticks ready to bludgeon. Their anger is oppositional to their opponent’s fog of fear, fatigue, and determination.

“Breath my child,” a gentle voice says. A sharp pain pierces on the back of his head. A thin line begins to ride down his neck. Someone yells “get down!”
One row of men raise their hands, eyes turned upward. The soft voice in his head says” be strong.”
Billows of grey smoke spew from a black canister. Strangers and familiars choke and gasp, eyes watering. Dreams of a bygone era play out in his mind. A tall thin brown sweaty woman smiles, moving down the road while singing we shall overcome. Dogs snap viscously at her compatriots. A fire pushes her siblings back with skin scraping pressure. A few of them fall, and couple falter in the struggle but most keep marching. Her brother, who is tall slightly bulky but wears the well-earned muscles of a man who labored hard all his life, clenches his fists, preparing to strike. She pulls him back. “Be strong, and gentle baby brother.”

They continue to sing “We shall overcome.”

       In his mind the young man sees his mother smiling, saying “"Be calm, saith my heart. I am a warrior. I have seen far worse than this." He smiles through the pain stands up and chants “Hands up don’t shoot. Hands up don’t shoot.” Another brother rises behind him yelling “Black lives matter. Black lives matter.” A thin nerdy pale white guy cries we shall overcome, not in a singing tone, but it still rings beautifully. The struggle continues.

Your pain is relevant, like the Syrian refugee who is running from death to find a life, like the black mother in the black lives matters movement, like mine. I am broken, deeply cracked and ripped like paper when I see that you fail to understand their grief is real.

If skin color, place of birth, politics, or religions is what separates you from a stranger. Then remember your stranger was once a baby, has lost or will lose someone, and they will cry as you do. They will walk awake in mourning as will you, as you do, because they are human to. Syrian, Republican, Dominican, Cuban, American, Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and all variations between and around these distinctions are part of our human family.

Why do I seek truth? I must be careful to not retroactively define the reasons behind my seeking of the truth. If I list the best reasons for seeking the truth as I understand them now. I might define my previous attempts by my current understanding. This is dangerous to the truth because our memories are an ever evolving things adapting to the input of new information all the time. I actually understood this before I ever listened to the audio book on memory. Which was a couple months ago. I wrote a poem describing the process.
Why should one seek the truth? To build a better brain
The constant pursuit of new truths creates new neural pathways not only does this prevent the disintegration of old neural pathways by reinforcing them and rewiring them into other pathways it also increases (speculatively) the density of neural pathway. This should help prevent or postpone things like Alzheimer’s or dementia which seems to be something that might run in my family. Although, I wish I had such foresight when I was younger, I cannot honestly ascribe that to my reasons.
The truth empowers us. Our options are limited by our current understanding of reality. If we do not know that there is way we cannot pursue that way. If we think we cannot we never will. Understanding there are almost infinite paths to any giving destination allows us the fortitude and freedom to push through obstacles, for any situation. This has not always been my reasoning but it to is a good one.
Fear is a good reason to seek the truth, and one that is probably much closer to my original intentions. Fear stems from uncertainty. If you know something bad is going to happen you can learn to accept it or by referencing the previous paragraph you can find a way to change it. As young man I was afraid of myself more than anything. I was curious about the cruelty of humans because of my mom’s behavior, and those around me. As much as I would like to believe otherwise I was very reactionary and I still am. My pursuits where a matter of whims. Educational reading did not really start until after I developed a taste for fiction. Even now I am a lazy self-educator. Well, lazy by the standards of what I know I am capable of. It has been my understanding that many people do not engage in much introspection and self-education. It is not their fault they are constantly bombarded by the pressures of life which sap their time and willpower.
Now I am getting bored with this process of self-discovery so I am going to go back to engaging in mindless dvd entertainment.

When a soft sparkle shimmers across the evening sky, or the water glimmers with ripples expanding ever outward in concentric circles, I will think of those I know, knew, and lost. I will remember them with a smile, and I will strive to be worthy of their love. I live this life for me not separate but part of a human collective and I offer my hand in hope to all even those who may bare me some malice. This is not naiveté, but love. Love for those who love but most important love for those who hate and I hope that by loving I can teach them to turn away from their rage and embrace everyone for what they truly are. Brothers and sisters to us all

The black box camera flickers, startling a nearby pedestrian. Two ceramic seal statues fall cracking against the light brown dirt with a bell like ting, then shatter. New sorrow fills an old man’s face. Tears become permanently plastered in Polaroid pictures. Another click causes disparate pieces of blue and white porcelain to freeze in a photographic ether. One moment that should have been private, is now popularized.
            The clicks continue within a small span of life. Phosphorous flashes catch two children playing tag. Silent laughter frozen within their playful smiles. It is a strange scene, fun overlapped with their shattered surroundings. Some beige broken stones stand scratched, some crack and crumble.  Other stones lean at an awkward angle exposing their broken foundation as if they were works of abstract art.  The chaos of glass clutters and cuts through the already decimated landscape. The history of explosions are etched in the bomb scorched earth, each one looking like its own Rorschach inkblot.  Still, life continues, and as it goes on it is collected to be kept for the future.
            Another click catches life in grey scale. Sobs are silenced by the medium but speak loudly through the picture. Grey gravestone glitter on a cold autumn day. Leaves fall and scatter across the dull background. People stand shoulder to shoulder, no breathing space allowed, and no one bothering to catch their breaths between the sobs. Several soldiers salute the dead man with rifles.
            Click, click, click the camera cuts a swath through precious memories. Happy moments caught on colored film. What a sweet change for the tired device. New children born, new birthdays celebrated, smiles and hugs, hands clasped in surprised reunion. Time moves on as these moments are trapped within their own tiny two dimensional world.
            There is no sd memory chip to save the photos. However, the spirit of every moment is etched onto the soul of the camera. The ******* box of a thing now collects dust. Still, the still photos lay dormant in an old album. Old hands, and smiles cease to be, leaving only altered shades of past memories. The little lies, truths not obscured but slightly altered by old color scales. Those moments are not immortalized only able to find a temporary respite from the void.