Life Without Resentment

Nearly everyone has stored
among hardbacks and paperbacks
or dusty mental drawers
resentments, gathered incidentally
unintentionally or
by rubbing shoulders
with ingrates and other
irritating souls

Meeting her, she exudes
an excitement for what is said
while displaying an openness
a self-reliance
that disallows any acrimony
indignation or animosity

No bitterness is harbored
nor rancor secreted
among the ruins
of her disappointments

Not long-suffering
the past is forgiven and forgotten

Not apprehensive or perturbed
she treads in this moment
with the power of living in the present
no longer feeling victimized
She lives refreshed, restored
without resentment

Brown and withered
Who could foresee
How tenuous was the
Hold on earth

Embedded deep
Surrounded by soft
loam, lightly tethered
There was slight resistance

Efforts to replace
Prove futile
Remnants of what
Once appeared to thrive

Lie gathered among
Scraps decaying
In the morning sunlight

Like a newborn
I am stimulated
By whatever is near

Discombobulated
Things become unfathomable
I’m unable to grasp
My surroundings

What is near and
What is far?

Distractions flow
Like tattered streamers
Waving from a
Parade float heading
To the junkyard

With blurs all around
Life becomes like
Circular bands of light
Emanating from streetlights
Along a foggy riverside highway

Whenever lucidness invades
Life seems simple,
And I realize
it is simple

All that is required
Is to traverse
Layer upon layer
Of  events and missions
Difficult to accomplish

Although the landscape is level
clouds begin to bellow
in the distance

Mere wisps at first
gradually more pronounce
gray, then coal-black

Interrupted with flashes
strikes, bold and brilliant
disappearing, reappearing
each with a thunderous entry
and silently sleeking away

Where would it display
its fury and
what would be
left behind

Was it birthed of one’s own volition
Was it intended or uncontrolled
Nevertheless, left behind
is a blistered path
waiting to be healed
to spring forth
albeit slowly as a
recovering forest
after a wildfire

A bee is flitting with my shoulder
pecking aimlessly around my ears
plotting a plan to strangle me

If the plan evolves
I fear I will become
anchored into
the depths of grief

And invaded by drips
of senselessness,  
fierce enough
that their stench
can’t be purged
with fans, perfumes
or candles

Will the enormity
of it all kindle
a fragmentation
more taxing than
trying to complete
the Rubik’s Cube
blindfolded

Each day is
as a procession of
redundant clopping
on the ground
rhythmic sounds
that anesthetize,
mesmerize

have we become blinkered
along this trail
through life

like a steed in harness
undistracted by
glimpses of
clouds of hate
along the horizons
or seething storms
blowing in from the seas

Self-effacement

With time names and dates
engraved on headstones
weather beneath pelting sleet and rain
to soften carefully chiseled letters

Little by little
etchings become
blurred at the edges
indistinct and unreadable

Personality features
fade daily
hidden with words
structured into facades
readily available as a cover
from those who wish
to unearth the treasures within

What a struggle to hide
to mute or soften
eccentricities into normalities
What an effort
continual concealment
behind frights and fears
as though a child
playing hide-and-go seek with others

Self-effacement becomes
a life-style of constantly
playing a game without a prize