~ when love precipitates, selfishness evaporates ~




© 2020 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.

Crossing those boundaries of yesterday, step into unknown.
As today is your birthright, burn with fervour; consume and rise.
Repetition is forbidden, etch out your story; time flies.
Past is shrivelling rose, let go, so it may nourish its own.
Enraptured, relish each moment like a French delicacy.

Desire is destiny, fickle as change is constant. There's just
Indecency of death, after which comes the stygian dearth.
Embrace that permanence, and drain every day of all its worth.
M**an wasn't meant to be a slave of tomorrow, break free; you must!

Just because it looks like I'm paying attention
doesn't necessarily mean
that I'm not pondering Shakespeare.

Roses are running through my irises,
pentameter bleeds through my veins,
and inwardly,
Macbeth reigns.

So know that when you look my way,
I may be listening in...
But more than likely, you will find
Shakespeare will always win.

On dusty, aging shelves
rest countries of minds
drying in paper jars:
mummified in culture,
embalmed in ink,
reincarnated in conscience.

Go forth! Adorn walls and altars
to honor epitomes of thought:
precise rhetoric of Socrates,
vivid horrors of Dante,
articulate utopias of Moore,
cryptic lessons of Sa'di,
heroic voices of Shakespeare---
all epiphanies of poets
and projections in prose
collected together.

Yet if ignored and neglected,
such wisdoms are wasted,
and intellectual temples
aimed to inspire and instruct
remain silent, standing crypts.

To my child:

In your rash attempts
to fight and secure yourself
a piece of the pie,
I hope you may be patient
and offer to those
who have yet to taste it.

Seeds of gradual wisdom,
planted by one's own hand,
grow forth from the consistent,
loving watering, remembered
during the daily routines.
Yet, such insightful gestures
that produce beautiful forests
do not need to be clever
as misguided words designed to deceive;
do not need to be masked
with illustrious, falsely-fabricated photos;
and do not need to be blinded
from decorated lights that attract moths.

Rather than the various tropes
captivated and projected through
self-proclaimed prophets and mentors,
the humble observer endures
each inspiring, spoken lesson
as soft, ever present headaches,
innate as the erratic voice
that frustratingly reminds us
that we are meant to do good.