It's everybody's job.

Détente, rollback, middle-ground.

Working it until an internal weakness is found.

Surround the town with wire.

Eventually their voices will tire.

It does not work with fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to the logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.

For this reason, it can easily withdraw—and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point.

This...
The shaking of a reed
The movement of the water
The flicking of a flame.

This...
The crying of a child
The weariness of the labourer
The burning skin from the sun.

This...
The racking pain of guilt
The salty tears of loneliness
The swan song of past glories.

This...
The masks of complacency
The contracts of acceptance
The closing of the mind.

This...
The continuing saga
The words that fill the pages
The lot in life we all share.

Like dark rain splashing across my skies,
These foaters blur my aging eyes.
And the ears aren't any better, see,
My hearing depends on a battery.
At times my tongue trips on your name;
Or wrong words spill out my brain.
I find hairs where they don't belong,
And crepe skin hanging lose and long.
There's brown spots on my once clear skin,
This aging thing is the real sin.
I creak, I rattle, I leak and prattle,
Cause no one listens when I speak.
But,
Remember this.
I taught you how to use a spoon,
Sang good-night songs in your room.
Tucked you in, made you safe,
Made your home your go to place.
I sat you on your bicycle seat,
And ran behind you down the street.
I walked you to and from your schools,
Shared with you my secret rules.
And when the time comes that I'm gone,
You'll remember I wasn't always wrong.

From our teens through life we
play the waiting game, seeking
perhaps longing for that one very
special someone that will fulfill
our dreams and desires, a soulmate
extraordinaire.

Few of us are fortunate enough to
find and actually hold close that
special person, where love comes
easy and somehow lasts forever,
an anomaly of the highest order.

Lots of living creatures' mate for
life, beavers, swans, penguins,
albatrosses, even wolves, but
for most of we humans, it seems
we are not that committedly inclined.

So, what is the formula for that
so elusive of goals, of finding that
special person and everlasting love?

Frankly my friends other than dogged
perseverance and serendipitous, good
fortune, I have no earthly clue.

A light is on me
Radiant solitude
Illuminates me
I stand in absence
Of my shadow

Whole but
Incomplete
I exist, solid
Tactile reality
And longing

A part of me
Is missing
I can’t touch it
But, I feel its
Vacancy

I am incomplete

And still—
I dream in outlines
Of your touch,
A warmth I’ve never
Held, yet carry
Everywhere.

Across the distance
You are both presence
And ache, and
A pulse inside desire,
A voice in my silence.

I miss you—
Perfect stranger,
As if the missing
Was always you,
And I have only now
Learned its name

If I had a wish,
what would I wish for?

I would wish for you
in the next life.

But then, would you ever wish
not to be with her?

The scattered words disturb the silence.
I prefer written pages with my left hand,
But it is trembling too much to write slowly
I miss him, his calm hands giving juicy oranges.

Shattered glass falls in slow motion,
Screams in the apartment,
Just the neighbor next door.
Another struggle,
Another soundless fracture
From the outside,
It’s not visible
What really hurts.

I have my refuge.
My piano and fingertips
Strike the rhythm,
Racing to speak in time.

What I want to repeat to myself
It isn’t lush or gentle,
Only barren,
like thoughts hung on a dry twig.
I trace figure eights,
Locked in a simple shape.
I stare and cannot fathom
The logic of a cold two plus two.
A thought-form circles
Around the blue planet.

Something pointing,
With its mercury finger.
It speaks in an unknown dialect
It shows the place to live
And huge fluorescent deserts.

The clouds’ minds —
A piece of earth
Soaked in different
Kinds of screams.

This is my blind chance.
I was born here.
In my mother’s paradise garden
Spinning in dawn’s glow.
Sometimes I just write
To ease personal and common guilt.

I hear tattooed numbers,
Granting citizenship of the lower caste.
And here,
The fresh scent of good life in the morning.
Blackbirds and thrushes fell silent.
My mother knows how to speak to them,
I know how to speak with trees.

Everything pulses,
On this small piece of earth,
Giving shelter to creatures
And stones no one throws.
I am here in a place I can happily bear,
Without cold speculation.

I can still dive into metaphors,
This is my greatest luxury,
The gift after so many disturbing lives.

It would be better to create a world
With only diverse breathing gardens.
I don’t need too much for living,
A naked soul is enough for me.

So, I am sitting in this landscape
And I peacefully hope
That my daughter will remember me tenderly
As I remember him, my father
And all who passed away.

The simplest thing is
The presence of every human being
It's like a celluloid film strip
Left behind the broken ribs
In the left ventricle of the heart
That never lies, never cheats me.

There once was a king
Who built a big bonfire
Right in the center
Of his kingdom.

"Higher and higher still!"
The silly king shouted.
And it was done!
He made them all jump to.

Proud, he was, to rule
Over everything
As far as his eye could see.
With his bonfire done

He was ready for the fun.
He called for more fuel.
"More, and more!" he shouted.
And it was done!

Now with all eyes on him
He took a match, gave it a strike,
Then threw it on the wood.
O, what a sight to see it so bright!

And the fire raged on
It began licking at homes,
Buildings, and even people!
It became a conflagration.

"It started before we knew it.
What was happening to us?"
Everyone began saying, shocked.
And yet the signs were all there.

Too much wood on the pile,
Too much fuel for the fire,
And an out-of-control ego
Who lost all control!

In the end, it all burned down.
And the moral of the story is:
When rulers burn the kingdom down
The king will rule over nothing but

Ashes.