From an ornate podium
the orator spoke words--
..extraordinarily elaborate ones..
as if,
as if

But those who know..
we who have  laid low,
down in to the trenches
as grunts, both  outside
and inside  

    of the wire..

Those who have  quietly
done their legwork..
who have accepted their
difficult fate  as that   borne  of
and in to,  a training..  an equipping;
lay low,
lay low

.   .   .   .  

The throngs
at the foot of the podium--
mesmerized by their own  need
to be mesmerized,  never even
   noticed the children
who  in their innocence,  peered
out from under the crowd's legs

to better see the 'magnificent' podium..

The oldest of which, ran back to trenches
trying to describe what they saw.
Two of the quiet, unassuming-ones
made their way back to the podium,  
and in blocking out the orator's voice,
(which  to the  knowing,
was  as that of a clanging bell..)

Now observed up close, the inner-workings
of the elaborate podium
and sat in  wonder of its expenditures--
wrapped around such  slipshod,   weak
and hastily assembled framework..

And in having become interested in the
structure's groundedness to what one
would hope would be  a solid-built
foundation, placed onto solid, earthen ground
They instead gasped as they saw its
legs floating upon nothing..

"What the **** is holding this thing up..?"

War-trained and battle-hardened,
they remembered their superiors speaking
in hushed tones that even ******, with all
of his blowhard oratorical *******,   at least

had a semblance of the podium's fastenings..

Albeit, partially assembled by our own country's
stupidity within certain provisions brought forth
in the Treaty of Versailles,

   but this
   but this;

This oratorical misleading of the broken-ones
this empty illusion of a presentation,  borne
not  from a suffering  leading to true regeneration
but instead, a distractive short-cut into the Realms;
   This counterfeit substance..
as if borne in power,    as if..  as if.

    .. But the realms.. they know

It is only those down here on earth,  spirit
cloaked within the deceptive misgivings
of the flesh-- so aching to establish itself
apart  from the necessary legwork needed
to humbly become a part of Stream's flow:
(borne,  solely from the inner Wellspring--  deep
within the bowels of Love's True Ache)..


It is here.. on earth..  that you will find
the reward you seek..  oh wondrous orator,
oh magnificent 'smither' of fine words..

   Your podium, a whitewashed soapbox
   floating upon nothing..


--And therefore meaning   nothing
within the Substance-Based parameters  
    of the Realms.

I felt my emotions piling over me
Like blankets of water
Where the cold held close
With an illusion of warmth
So linear that the vibrations stopped,
The dreariness felt like home.

Life
                                                            ­    has
            a
                       funny
     way
                                           of
                                  
                                ruining

      
                                                      Lives.