My
conscience
is clear

Listen
and
observe

But we are not our own any more
other selves live within us
deviously shaping our psyche
bit by bit, surreptitiously too
(but we are unaware)
like unwelcome weeds
that invade the greenness
of our lush inner field
and devour the flowers therein
like a blanket of dark clouds
shutting away the light
that once was solely our own
like a slow-acting virus
eating into our system
we wake up one day
to discover we have become
a hybrid self
no longer authentic
but synthetic -
our thoughts are not our own
we are the voice of other selves
their language we echo
like well-trained domestic parrots

what are we then
without our-ness
our oneness
our right to being?

Dear Peter,

But you are a peaceful person
while I have never been-
my extreme tendencies,  while they have given me strength and courage to be what I am,
are also the cause of my unpleasantness, my peremptoriness and my rudeness--also crudeness and sometimes, insensitivity.
I don't enjoy it but just as a dog has a tail, I am stuck to what's in me and what I am.
Cutting the tail off? You might as well **** the dog!
Cut half of it?  The animal would never be the same again-
it has lost its pride, dignity and disparate self!  Its existence would have no meaning, it would count no more but would rather perish.

I don't compromise or, even if I do, it's a reserved and partly insincere compromise-
in short, not only do I have more faults than others
but, more importantly, they are enormous  in size and proportion
and are damaging sometimes.

Yet strangely,  there are some who like my accompany
but perhaps more who would keep their distance.
I don't blame the latter--they are right in their judgement and perception.

You might ask: are you happy being ruled by extremities?

My answer: I can't help it and I can't say I'm unhappy on account of this--my ugly blemish.

However you might interpret,  it's that you had seen me as a young man of 20 in 1960?
and have the chance now to compare that person with a very old man who is turning 78 this year.

My last word: I don't hate myself for my faults--whatever good that I have done, it's up to my family
to decide. But I know they would be biased.

These are my last 5, 7, 8 and at most, perhaps 10 years--I would waste no time
to do what I must, free and unencumbered, letting the world and people go by in their own  way--which means so little to me
(as I have to think of my self-interest first) and then fade away, hopefully without pain and with calm acceptance,
into the night to which I would return no more.  'Someday it would be good to die…', from a poem of Christina Rossetti whose poetry
has inspired several of mine.

Be of good cheer--you have a wonderful family and are already blessed.

Your unpopular friend
M.S  
dated 1st January 2018

The tide is silent tonight
asleep is the distant sea
the moon is weary of its light
love longs to be free--

the wings of hope have taken flight
the heart is bereft and empty
by the seashore I stroll and no one is in sight
I wonder whether she still remembers me.

Dear M,
                                       Do we really need to live forever?
Yes, it's the now-ness that matters--the immediacy--the light, the colour, the smell, the sound, the love and adoration , the tenderness, the touch and embrace, the beauty and splendour, the inspiration,  the effusion of fullness,  the heart in worship,  the music, the poetry,  the unity, the connectedness, the silence and stillness, the unfolding, the awakening, the coming into being, the mystery, the forgetting and dying of self, the leap into the unknown,  the purity, the quintessence, the simplicity, the acceptance,  the resurrection and renaissance.
                  Then time is forgotten and loses its potency, it stays aside and wakes  in reverence to the religion of living that we have created from our heart-- It would say--I am learning from mankind-- its true self I'm yet to fathom and understand.  
                   To be is the eternity.

copyright 2017

My love ( without demanding attention)
you shouldn't bother to return
if such affection ( I don't indulge in pretension)
(  did I drive you to desperation?) I don't earn.