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Dylan McFadden Feb 2021
I’m caught in a game
Of hide-and-seek…

Where the run-from One
Haunts my every thought,
And calls out to me
With seductive roars

[And I know her too well;
I know her too often]

While the chase-after Other
Graces my every dream,
And dances upon the earth
With footsteps as soft as a whisper

[And, oh, this Other I long to know;
Oh, this Other I long to hold]

I’m caught in a game
Of hide-and-seek…

.
Inspired by Ecclesiastes 7

As other wisdom teachers have done (see Proverbs 1-9), the author of Ecclesiastes depicts folly and wisdom in terms of two women: one a pernicious seductress and the other an elusive virtuous bride.

Humanity is caught in a crazy game of seeking and finding. People are constantly chased by Folly, a dangerous “woman” from whose deadly snares they must try to escape; but only those favored by God can do so, while others inevitably are caught (7:26). At the same time, one tries desperately to find Wisdom, the “woman” who could save one from danger, but she is elusive (7:24, 28).
alex grey Jan 2021
do you have any idea
how special you make me feel?

by your smile, the corner of your lips
touched by the goddess of joy,
i am warmed, enveloped by the kindling
in your ember'd voice

i never understood love until
i lost myself in your gaze

the world slows to a stop
stretching the limbs of time
just to treasure that moment
of your beaming grace

too many thoughts juggle in the background,
racing through my mind but i struggle
to even grab a single one, just to respond-
before i'm lost in your eyes.

how is it you spark such joy in a simple look,
a touch of mischief caught in the corner of your
eye just there beyond the specks of blue on grey

i cannot hold a single thought but the moment
you share my gaze, i wish to hold that moment
for eternity.

i don't know much about love, but when asked,
you are the first thought to cross my mind
and the first name on my lips.
i wish to see you once more
Tom Lefort Jan 2021
We kissed, I loved, you betrayed
My youth, a trust, perfect days.
You went, I mourned, nothing left,
I was, you were, my hope bereft.

1984
Dave Robertson May 2020
Having faith in the change
the wind might bring
is a thing
y’know?
a challenge
testing bitter thoughts
and locked up hearts
too long apart

But it will blow
y’know?
this wind we wait for
bringing other thoughts
to sit inside
and while away togetherness

I watch the forecasts
come and go
y’know?
and pretend that there’s a pattern

This mapped isle
has never been one
for clement weather
but I’ll pretend to know
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine, Famous Poets and Poems, Litera, Poetry Life & Times and Freshet

Keywords/Tags: Stoops, folly, wisdom, children, wise, know, knowing, understand, understanding, life, death, grave, years, dark, leaves, trees, prince, toad, kiss, fairytale, coffin, fortress, bloodletting, maple, syrup
Seán Mac Falls Jul 2019
.
Lear wanders in stormy open, bares warring elements,
The heavens blister, crackle, night is balmy shroud,
Wretched monarch babbles in sprinkles of wind cold,
Arguments lost by ones own pouring perturbations
And raining sky said 'nothing will come from nothing.'

Howl, howls into blackness treed in lightning splits,
His outcast soul, reels, fleshed, cut to smithereens,
Tang of salt burns on the bluffs and the sea rages,
So entire and ceremonious is Lear's fall meted out,
Air spoke, 'nothing from nothings ever yet was born.'

Sky proclaimed to man child King, here is a reckoning,                            
Each mad choice was self infliction, now wind flays
And sweet Cordelia lies in her innocent **** grave,
Sky, in thralls of thundering asks, 'what say thee now,
King of highborn follies, even purple heaths are rags,

Yet black and above you and night shades, whine,
Unworthy King, done in by compounded effects,
The might of maelstroms in low butterflies wings,
How now, bare trees, knifing reeds, skeletal flashes,
To rains of night are ever your lanyards my lord,'

Sad Lear so near oblivion fell mute, sky went on,
'Howl and cry mad King your reaper calls beyond,
The icy brisk heavens await to brusque you away,
Your slipshod kingdom was mere and fools' dream,
Howl, til howls abrupt abate, for nothing now comes.'
.
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare in which the titular character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. Based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king.
Ken Pepiton Jul 2019
Days from now we look back and find we left a clue to

now

this moment
you meet me now and

we agree
something shall change if we

agree

to see this all-self-ish-ness from your

God POV,
which you imagined as good as any you

imagined
as you aged from I to we.
After the call to Sgt. John Wikel July 2, 2019, fifty years after everything changed.
OpenWorldView May 2019
hubris not wisdom
is ruling the current world
it will end in tears
it always does
Jenny Gordon Apr 2019
My note on this reads:  "shoulda been 01Apr19--begun just after midnight turned"



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXLI)


The Cardnal called as twere for me in pale
Dawn's early light--just once--as if for sense.
And lo, that line I'd penned in tribute thence
Comes to the 'fore--"...I've got [in sheer betrayl?]
A scarlet lover--" which I swiftly hail
With prayrs of "O! please give me to from hence
A man, LORD!" and how April Fools is't? dense
Wi' import finds "him" where I cherish...bail?
"Say twas an April Fool's joke--" in a poor
'Scuse for my prayrs and hopes keeps rolling through
My mind, but I dare NOT write THAT down.  You're
Allowed to laugh. Nor Cardnal, sparrows to
Aught purpose cry...until "he's" gone.  I stir
Me to weak smiles, cuz my heart's weary too.

02Apr19a
Ahem.  The fun angle of this week's passel of damning stanzas is watching the tale unfold.  Take it or leave it.
Miss Fit Mar 2019
I think foolish best describes an intellectual's ways
I know it sounds ironic, but I'll enlighten you on what the world says Or rather what the world thinks  

See, I grew up thinking that reading was learning  
And learning was knowledge
And that knowledge was born from logic
And finally that logic was wisdom  

Is it just me or did we all grow up in a society that was blinkered to view wisdom as education
With our minds blinded to see intellect as knowledge
Thinking knowledge is power, power is money and money is...well...everything
Well, money does answer all, but it is not everything  
You see, mankind's intelligence never satisfies
The more learned we become the more the world slips away
The more knowledge we possess
The more the world becomes complex  

We believe ourselves to be the I AM
With the power to know everything
We seek wisdom in philosophy
But it only makes us realize we are fools
That the wise don’t exist on earth
Unless we seek wisdom in the great I AM
And forget that earthly knowledge is power  

Well, knowledge is power, but WISDOM
Wisdom is ETERNITY
It is the eternal life that we're all working towards
The life that that thief on the cross had to look forward to
Only because he was wise enough to recognize his salvation and his Saviour  
So, dear stewards, the best that you can give your children is not a Harvard or Oxford kind of education
The most valuable gift is not the concept of making money  

The best that you can give to those in your care is wisdom
This wisdom is the knowledge of a man
Who abandoned His own kingdom
To die for foolish simple men  

A man who stood before so called high judges
Yet He was the Most High
A man who humbled the proud
And used the foolish things to shame them
For His word says that even His foolishness
Is greater than our wisdom
For His thoughts are not our thoughts
Neither are his ways our ways  

So, all I'm saying is
The most valuable legacy that you can leave
Is the knowledge of the One with all the wisdom,
The wisdom to choose God
For we only find wisdom when we realize, we are nothing but fools before Him  

Miss Fit
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