To be tied to a reality other than your own is
either liberating or shackling for in the alternative
is your own what is true or the absence of anything
other than what you have experienced or perceived;
what should I tell you about that; did the painting
hide something for a reason or might it be better
that you decide what the suggestion on a canvas
is about; and so why did the shadow stop at the
given point in the parallel; do you wish to discuss
the physics or instead the abstract claim of a
metaphor that is greater than the life which it
attempts to emulate; there is no moment without
a question; there is no explanation without doubt
however slight; this is how you have learned to live;
you are not creation even though you can create;
you are not death because you will not **** though
it is true that you will die; you are not floating as
you cannot fly though you move relative to the star
you wished upon last night; you are not weightless
nor are you full of meaning except to your children
or someone you have hurt deeply; you are not
happy but you have made someone smile; you
are not forever though you believe you can see
it when you stare into space even though it is only
light from the past; you moved to a smaller town
because you used up the abundance of what you
once thought illuminated your aura in the presence
of others; you were once free to spend all your
time with someone you loved madly until they
decided you weren’t going to do what they
needed you to do; but did you hold to principle
or selfishness; the discomfort of their absence has
failed to reduce itself to the memory of a movie
you once watched; instead it has become an
explanation with residual doubt, in other words
it is the way we live; we tell someone we love
them and find out later that we actually meant
it at the time; you are a natural scientist as
discovery is everything you crave; you want to
know their mind, what they are thinking, how
deeply they can love and if they ever truly loved
anyone else more than you; but these discoveries  
are not for your betterment; it is only to provide
the comfort of your worth; did a someone love
them at their peak beauty then reject them; does
it mean they will never get over it or does it mean
what you now have is a mind that has finally
humbled itself yet has built a wall, not of beauty
but instead of caution; either of bricks or stone,
but no matter for its strength is the same, as you
cannot scale what is intended to be a test instead
of understanding or kindness; but is any of this even
true; it could well be that you instead built the wall
because you were once beautiful and now are only
vulnerable, because to walk naked or to ask someone
to walk naked before you is the same; and it will not
happen until you have found the courage to lose or
live with the reality that you have expressed or that
they have revealed; all that you can hear at this
moment is your own labored breathing; you have
allowed your mind to walk where you are weightless;
where you creation; where you are death; where
forever exists; where the questions that followed
doubt became answers that pushed doubt ahead
of you, for another day because today the shadow
on the canvas finally made sense; it was not about
you because it did not come from the brush that
you hold in your hand; it was only to be explained
fully by the artist; but for you it was to be used as
you wish and that is how you will know its meaning;
the cocoon and the womb have been left behind and
the shadow is only about how you will live; that is
what you can see and the explanation will not be
forthcoming from its creator; that is for you to decide

"Give what you wish to receive."

I've clawed out of a hole
and bitten myself to stay
in the light.

Sometimes I wonder
if you were supposed to keep some
for yourself?

Or else you would have been left empty.
Just a shell.

No longer someone,
merely a name

That everyone will forget.

I could singe your whiskers
laugh aloud at your corderoys,
remove  your landed title
and send you to live in a tent
at the edge of  the woods
I've always wanted a hermit
in the vicinity of the folly.

There are three types of people.

The first type are the pawns,
The ones who follow the rules blindly.
These people don't often know that their being controlled,
It's rather sad.

Then There's the second type of person, the players.
These people know about the game,
And use their power to resist and control the game
In their favor.

Then there's the last group of people, the masters.
These people learned of the game called life,
And they don't like what they see.
They change the world to meet their ideals,
For better or worse.

I know were I fall in,
So can I ask the question?

Which is you?

The skies they were ashen and sober;
  The leaves they were crisped and sere—
  The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
  Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
  In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
  In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic.
  Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
  Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
  As the scoriac rivers that roll—
  As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
  In the ultimate climes of the pole—
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
  In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
  But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
  Our memories were treacherous and sere—
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year—
  (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber—
  (Though once we had journeyed down here)—
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
  Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now as the night was senescent
  And star-dials pointed to morn—
  As the sun-dials hinted of morn—
At the end of our path a liquescent
  And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
  Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent
  Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said—”She is warmer than Dian:
  She rolls through an ether of sighs—
  She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
  These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
  To point us the path to the skies—
  To the Lethean peace of the skies—
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
  To shine on us with her bright eyes—
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
  With love in her luminous eyes.”

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
  Said—”Sadly this star I mistrust—
  Her pallor I strangely mistrust:—
Oh, hasten!—oh, let us not linger!
  Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must.”
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
  Wings till they trailed in the dust—
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
  Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
  Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied—”This is nothing but dreaming:
  Let us on by this tremulous light!
  Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming
  With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—
  See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
  And be sure it will lead us aright—
We safely may trust to a gleaming
  That cannot but guide us aright,
  Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
  And tempted her out of her gloom—
  And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of a vista,
  But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
  By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said—”What is written, sweet sister,
  On the door of this legended tomb?”
  She replied—”Ulalume—Ulalume—
  ’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
  As the leaves that were crisped and sere—
  As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried—”It was surely October
  On this very night of last year
  That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—
  That I brought a dread burden down here!
  On this night of all nights in the year,
  Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
  This misty mid region of Weir—
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,—
  This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”