Healthy souls are dead, we are all just copies now

2007
Look. ( those with eyes to see)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Look alive this day could be your last.
Look not a gift horse in the mouth.
Look not blue if happy times are past
Look through rosy glasses if in doubt.
Look in back,you’ll turn to pillared salt
Look one direction n paddle other way.
Look daggers at the man who is at fault
Look for that needle in a stack of hay.
Look,behold your words. Speak your mind
                       TODAY.
Written by Philip
Posted 30/10/2018.


2007 June 5th.  

Mission Impossible

Your mission should you choose to accept it?
May be tougher than total disease eradicated
Slower than abolition of third word poverty
No pinnacle as high as a career in true poetry

You will be deprived of all satellite navigation
Ostracised b friends n fair weather neighbours
Unarmed just words are your feeble protection
Your existence denied , should they ever get u

Let me warn you my brave poet friend
Take heed, you may think it no problem
Write all this free verse indeed w’ a vengeance
But once your outside defending fair maidens

Vanity n pride are left behind at your station
Your mind be clogged with a million quotations
This text , it destructs thru your own hesitation
Poet laureate you are not in my estimation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip. 1st November 2018.

Here at Kinkos
We have a saying, “copies of copies”
You are trained to always ask for a source file
The digital file of the picture the camera took
The negatives of digital cameras
You see because when you print a picture from that file it’s the best it will ever be
Every detail captured in that moment stored in bits and bytes ready
If you make a copy of that picture it will never be as good
And if you make a copy of that copy it’ll be even worse
And if you were to make a copy of the hundredth copy of the ninety ninth copy you might not even recognize the image
Whether it’s a speck of dust on the scanner
Or a crease in the print out
Sun stains from prolonged exposure to the elements
Or simply from time
Copies never look as good as the original
Even if you try and protect them
And even if you were to magically protect that photo from any external forces
The next copy still won’t be the same quality
A scanner can never pick up every detail from the print on the glass
Copies of copies are never the same
Sometimes the printer is calibrated different
Sometimes it’s a heavy magenta day
Sometimes it’s a saturated cyan day
Maybe you touched her face when you handed it over
And now every copy has a feint of your thumb print above her eyebrow
You had him taped to your rearview mirror for a whole year
And now every copy you make has a glare where the tape used to be
It blocks out his heart shaped hands he was making you from the bus window
Folded in your wallet and now all the copies have white spaces where her face was
I mean where the creases were
I’ve heard that when you remember something you are simply remembering the last time you remembered it
Memories of memories
So that after you’ve remembered her a thousand times you’ve forgotten all the details you forgot to remember the time before
So that the more you remember something, the faster you’ll forget
Maybe that’s why we forget exes faster than family
Maybe that’s why we forget the great parts of high school before the painful ones
I remember that you had red hair, that your eyes were kind, that your hands fit my cheek
I remember that you were bad at pool and that it felt like love, and if it wasn’t you’re the only one that knew it
And now I’m wondering after all these years what I’m forgetting to remember
What I forgot to remember last time
What did I forget this time
What won’t I remember next time
Memories of memories
Like copies of copies
Fading over time
If I never wanted to forget the best moments of my life
Should I never remember them
Is the fastest way to forget the bad ones
To remember them often

There is no sense in this world anymore
I feel sore
Seeing people being all the same
It looks like I am to blame

Personality,
A word that doesn't exists in our dictionaries anymore
Creativity was pruned out
Like the hair on the soldier's head

Money is all they think about
I can't carry out
They are making insane
Making me not the same

If they made Holy Scriptures out of our deeds
How many would we put on display for everyone to read?
When Bani Israel was frozen in time
within divine words,
they did not know
they would become timeless lessons
for generations to come.
Not the liar when he told his last lie,
nor the careless while laughing at the cow,
not even the pious while he raised his staff.
Yet today, we read their stories
With heedless hearts ,
forgetting that we too will be written
in pages heavier than stones
on scales worth more than mountains of gold.
So, why do we pretend that our time is infinite?
As though tic tocs were nothing but melodious beats
synchronized to our pulse.

wal Asr
And by time
Innal Insana la fikhusr
Verily mankind is at loss

How can we not think of yesterday as an effigy,
And tomorrow’s uncertainty as a form of art?
We are artists.
And when our hair strands start to reflect the silver moonlight
When our eyes start telling century old stories
When our joints start pleading with time
Will we then finally ask ourselves:
What will there be left of us?
Originals,
or mere copies?