"plateau" poems
Kudos to Kaepernick.
I just cannot drown all my beliefs and ideas, even if it contradicts my flesh and soul. When I heard that not standing up to the tune; that has always succeeded on sweeping all of the messes underneath the sad reality, to be deemed as subversive, I know that Rosa would definitely clench onto the seat tighter than ever.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
To drag our body out there, all over the precious hills and fields, while acting as if the scale has always been set fairly beneath you all this time, will hurt you more than myself. How can a mere matter of things decide our future, our destiny? We shall shape our fate, you shall shape your own fate, and to be judged on the perception biasedly built in the name of order for thousands of years, is a situation that should not be endured by anyone or anything in a tiny dot within this vast universe.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
And for that, I cannot stand proudly and profess my love to you as of now, even though I will always wear my heart on my sleeve for you to see. To be cheated, to be manipulated, to be deemed as surplus, by those at the tip of the plateau, that cunningly asked us to forget all the tangles and wrangles for the love of this sacred land, while unashamedly distribute everything off the land, off the ocean amongst them, is the last thing that we should allow to happen. I am one of those people that are not able to put on the mask on top of our meant-to-be honest faces, to say hail to the thief is worse than the eternal grief. I have never dreamed of burying the hatchet with them, not even for a second and if I ever do it, I shall be condemned and dismissed for forgetting the roots, the fons et origo of mine. To love you does not mean to stand still to the soulless melodies, to love you does not mean to bow down to the meaningless piece of cloth that has overseen countless infiltration and bombing over the years.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
To love you is to fight for the rights of many, by any means, even by not standing up. When black is no longer the symbol of miserable, filth and calamity, we shall then breath with ease, stand on our feet and fully embrace the real meaning behind all those majestic words.
Kudos to Kaepernick.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
Sad because you feel too much
Or mad because you can't feel a thing.
Greener grass beckons,
And you wave to it longingly.
Love the rise,
Hate the fall.
Melodramatic monotone of monotony.
Perishable Plateau.
Whisk me away into infinity.
Dead on arrival.
Dead to the world.
Dead as a doornail.
Stuff me back inside my body
Like clothes in a suitcase.
I fit. I promise.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 7:56 PM UTC
Your colors are so heavy, how dare I, I cannot sleep. Years inundated under, through skin coils, marigold fields. Yellow crocuses, orange California poppies. Moors of cattle ranchers, yokes of oxen. Plasticine uber-confidence, silky white-skinned testubular thrice people harmonies. Blisses of contagion, contagious bliss. Wrists and incisors, tying down in a bedroom, waking up to live harps and choruses. You dance like you're so alive, but I'm so alive I can't dance. Or breathe. Or knead my fists of earthen wears, or sell my soul completely. I drove off a cliff last night, but the four foot fall ended neatly. The plateau authors my chance to sew my bright, beyond- my fortunes. But the hour before I fall asleep, seems to be the greatest torture.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC
On a plateau
by the seashore
sits a naked goddess,
a dryad or a naiad--
she laments a soft
song of mechanical
love. Bathing in the
quiet night, the
light, the
diamond-bright
stillness. She looks
at me with sad eyes.
On a conch-shell loveboat
together we sail
through snaky canals
of the heart.
Cool, lapping
water drips
from her long
seaweed hair as she
sings for me--
we go beneath
the sea &
look up at
intangible starfish
that mirror
the stars of the
surface.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
You act callously crude
Like Cronenberg's brood
You keep the body horror
In the naughty drawer
I feel my body's poorer
So you convince me I'm rich
Then treat me like an itch
And scratch
To detach
You invited me to your chateau
Then left me on this plateau
For my beating heart exploded from my chest
Once I foolishly entered your nasty nest
There I lay
As immobile prey
My body was infected
By your touch
And my mind dissected
Way too much
You passionately present me with body horror
I really resent you for being a shoddy sawyer
Cutting me down but not completely
Your lackluster love travels obliquely
Dislocating my horrified heart
My rib cage begins to part
As my mangled love
Escapes with my blood
My fingers are breaking
Trying to carry the relationship
Happiness I'm faking
When you crack your elation whip
When I'm powerless to the *****
I become showerless in a hurry
And my skin starts to rot
While I lie on your cold cot
You're my unforgiving cop
And the horrors never stop
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 1:15 PM UTC
for vicki who loves this poem for the best reason ever: just does...
<•>
read a thousand love stories,
pause, rest awhile,
read ten thousand more,
and then deny equality.
If you ask for no more than you can give,
you ask for not enough
love is imbalance not an equation,
with a single solution
love has both constants and variable factors
so you write of tribulations and tributes
so you write of lamentations and liftings
you think you are on the same page
perhaps
but do we not all read at different paces?
one of you is solid, one is dotted and dashed
one of you is straight, one is bent, forever curving
when you think you are
in balance
in the same place
in syncopation
perhaps you are for a moment
a calculus of one point on a trajectory
and you say I can only ask for what I give
and am given
and no more,
you have miscalculated
this flux
flummoxed
when the old terrain is flayed flat
but thru the windshield you see the
plateau ends, the geography unknown,
when you see unknown
when you seek the unknown
when you give from places you did not know
you had to give from
when you kiss a hand
for twenty minutes more than than the one minute you intended
when you give more than is asked
when you ask for more than you can you think you can give
the imbalance that is the only concert
the imbalance that is the the only constant
how do I know this?
what are my credentials?
you are not a teenage girl,
what matters of what you know, recall of these matters?
I am who I am
a diversity of man and manner;
I am past prime and in decline
but this I know
for having failed ten thousand poem times
you must ask for more than one can give
but that's not fair!
silly one, still wretched confused,
even after one hundred thousand poem times
you must ask of
yourself
more than you can give
and ask no less
demand no less
a body in emotion is not a body in rest
when the imbalance is too great or insufficient
then you write a poem
look in the mirror that cannot lie
and move
on
or
move off
begin to ask
yourself
to whom may I give myself
more than is asked.
then you have finally asked
the correct solution to the
unsolvable equation
---
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
~
In the mist of late night solitude,
from a mislaid plateau,
with a suitcase full of sparks
She observes constellations
reflected as little needy eyes,
peering down at her
They could be midnight directives,
postcards from distant nebula
suspended in gaffa
"Ne t'enfuis pas..." She exhales
Still she wonders:
will her children grow to love
their perfect machines more
than they love
their imperfect mother?
~
Jun 28, 2023
Jun 28, 2023 at 12:06 PM UTC
The gold that flows, through our elaborate veins,
The crop that is known, by many names,
The gift that alleviates, our daytime pains,
The commodity that plays, one too many games.
Our world is nothing, but a bottomless mine,
Simply waiting, for the wrath and plunder of humankind,
Oh labourers please, wait your spot in line,
For it was not you that made, this incredible find.
You’re a fool to think, the system needs a redesign,
For your fate and this chain, are forever intertwined.
Stay in your corner, as they wine and dine,
For it is you not them, contained by this chain’s bind.
Posing as a gift, that elevates their daily grind,
The brown gold is no longer, part of your bloodline,
It was their chains after all, that made this incredible find,
For it now flows away, from the Plateau’s skyline.
You continue to hope, for these chains to be redefined,
But to imagine you even exist to them, is asinine,
Yet you believe a consumer movement, would be so inclined,
For you forget that chains were made, to always confine.
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 3:55 AM UTC
solivagant (adj.) (english) wandering alone
Solivagant Traveler
Lost in a desert where affection is the water
I can't decide if its's been months, or maybe longer,
Since I laid my eyes upon you,
Or the mirage I perceived you to be.
As if you were a cactus who's affection is guarded,
by skin too sharp, and thick to bleed.
Sitting in this plateau surrounded by drier things,
dead plants and dusty bones.
A solivagant traveler is what I'll be.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
The forest of legs swayed in the moving shadows beneath the chatter over head, each threatening to block our path and crush our attempt to get to the first fallen crisps of the party season, which as yet laid undisturbed.
We weaved and advanced as fast as their legs allowed, eager to scavenge the waiting bounty before they were trampled underfoot by the oblivious adults who were intent on a seasonal ritual of their own that went on high over our heads.
We emerged unscathed at the edge of the forest and raced across the open parquet to the cover of the drapped, white topped trestle tables catching our breaths and crunching our snatched crisps planning our next move toward the plateau above.
Our scout had reported rich pickings, but when we looked around, seeking signs of our brave advance party, we could find no trace beyond a half eaten volovant and what might have been regurgitated mushroom. We shook our heads in despair at their folly. Every kid knows to stick to crisps and to processed meats, avoiding anything that might contain vegetables. We saw an open French window just beyond the trestles and heard plaintive heaves that had a distinct 6 year old strain.
We checked each other's resolve and saw on each other's faces that we believed our mission was more important than any one stomach. With a maturity that would have surprised our parents, we pushed the plight of our friend to the back of our minds and focused on the task at hand.
We each reached up with practiced stealth, taking only a second to check the food on offer and with a speed bred into us by the curse of older siblings, we each grabbed our prize.
Acknowledging the hazards of the return journey we devoured the meat at hand and with hyena grins savoured our just rewards. While our fallen friend heaved once more, we saluted one another: the season had started better than any of us could have hoped.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 5:25 PM UTC
so what do we do when all is left are figurines
gifted in the unholiest of manners
and the crusties in my eye when i awake
are no longer their
since sleep is a distant memory
and all the tides of highs and lows
simmer to a stagnant plateau
because days no longer carry weight
surmounting to popcorn on a string
--one just like the last--
suddenly a day
--popcorn with extra butter and just a pinch of salt--
comes and shakes the bland you into something recognizable
a sparkly-eyed realist with an unusually magnetic personality
drawn from absolutely nothing
but the reality that life goes on
and we just have to be aware of peoples polarity
s.q.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 5:47 PM UTC
Not an amulet, an off white vertebrae; bone.
Brass wire, a loop at one end.
It bends as to make sure this will fit.
A gauge that measures mesmerization,
And we both must get along, but
Not because we're not tough enough:
Most of us aren't soft right yet.
So many stiffs, folly after folly.
The whole carful of loose cadavers,
Dangling, their feet hang with wet snow
And carnage,
Not even musk deer pop up,
They've all gone. Roosting in a parabol,
With X's sprayed to their groins.
Burning pop couples
Doing it like laboratory mice. Capybaras
Hiss, my own burnt blood is also
Flocculating.
Turn the cup upside down and
See the fire's balmy lachrymal opaque
Moss while it does not drip.
This is the story of man you asked me about;
Devoid of a muzzle, fur onto his chest; coarse
Hair in a garland.
It is the God of a tool that buzzes into the night.
A plateau for this most sensible study.
We feel another coming.
And when you awoke, your larval tongue
My eye mush, a song of verse and melancholy.
This half list of greatness, a tally we both wish to see.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:38 AM UTC
The Brandon who was sure of a god is deceased,
But his memory is visible in my idealistic wish for one.
Who would not want a loving, personal god
Forgiving their wrongs and guiding them
Towards ever-lasting happiness?
Answer me..
No matter what you want,
In regard to matters of forgiveness and happiness,
You are on your own,
At least that's what I think.
I have to forgive myself,
Even if everyone else will refuse to do so.
Ugly and beautiful both describe me equally,
And these qualities apply to every
Other human being as well,
From the poor to the wealthy,
The atheist to the religious,
The prisoner to the police officer,
The terrorist to the president, and so on.
Failure to acknowledge this
Underscores moral supremacy,
And the over-simplification of humankind.
No war between Good and Evil is being waged,
And as far as happiness goes,
No man or woman can give it to you,
They can only supplement it.
It is not a plateau
To be permanently established,
It waxes and wanes like
The phases of the moon,
Tending to glow whenever you smile.
(c) 2013 Brandon Antonio Smith
9/20/13
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC
If I could mount that rock to my forehead,
the demons I'm fighting would finally go.
I know the risks of one last blow.
Visibility is prevented from me, by me, divided.
I choose sadness because it was all i ever felt.
This plateau of emotion will eventually
**** me-
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM UTC
The miracle weight loss pill ...
does help you lose weight, but keep it off what a joke
it doesn't change whats in your head
it doesn't give you the rush you need
when you're down
The miracle diet ...
does work for a while of course you lose weight
feels good you're eating healthy food
feels good that others notice and compliment you
then you plateau
The exercise machine ...
promises the world you too can be a hot model
you can do it just 3 minutes a day
you will transform into **** in weeks
then you stop
It takes much more than a few dollars
To turn your world inside out
To change the way you think
To change your lifestyle
Food is just food
Think about it like that
Try cutting out added sugar
Replace the bad takeaway with a good one
Do something small everyday
Remove all the effort
Its working on me
Day by day
I'm starting to fade away
Awesome
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 3:03 PM UTC
I buried him somewhere…
When I go to bed at night,
I checked the closet and he’s not there,
I tried under my bed and he’s not there.
Surely he’s dead for I buried him somewhere,
I am a woman now and not a frantic child,
It’s been a long while since I have not visited his grave,
Pray then, why must he appear now?
I tried hard to move on with life,
I persevered to love and accept myself,
I opened my heart to forgive my own,
My being is as wide as the skies.
I found solace in the plateau of my existence,
Why must he visit now?
Truly, I buried him somewhere,
And I swore he’ll never see me again.
He’s there trying to taunt and torture me,
He’s the one who mocks me,
He scoffs me when I search for happiness,
He laughs when I try beating myself.
Nightmares haunt me even at day,
He was the devil himself,
He, a vile and a disgusting man,
Who touched and fondled me in my innocent years.
He violated my freshness to rotten,
And it took me years to pick up the pieces,
Now that I’m almost whole I couldn’t understand,
Why must he resurrect in my dreams?
I am a woman and I still live,
Yet fear still envelopes my being,
I can never forgive and I will never forget,
But surely, I buried him somewhere…
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC
"Found poem", all the text lifted from a tourist pamphlet picked up in Crete, only very slightly edited.
There are daily buses starting from Chania
to the head of the gorge,
which is called Xyloskalo.
Buses say on the front "Omalos" and depart
from the central bus station.
By taking any of the morning buses you get to Xyloskalo
after one and a half hours.
At Xyloskalo there is a tourist pavilion
where you can get meals, drinks,
and which has only seven beds for staying overnight.
For those wishing to spend the night
on the Omalos plateau
there is another possibility, that of staying
at Omalos village itself, five kilometres before Xyloskalo,
where are two cafés providing several beds. From there
you get any of the morning buses starting from Chania
to the head of the gorge.
The length of the gorge is sixteen kilometres, and you need
five to six hours to walk through it. There is plenty
of drinking water all along the gorge. Tennis shoes
or walking boots are recommended. Camping,
overnight staying, smoking, hunting,
cutting and uprooting plants
are forbidden.
At the mouth of the gorge is Aghia Rouméli village,
which provides restaurants and accommodation.
From there you take boats
either to Sfakía (duration: one hour) or to Soughia
and Paleochora.
Remember that the last boat to Sfakía is at 17 hours,
which connects with the last bus to Chania at 18 hours.
Duration of the bus trip: two hours.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 10:40 AM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
You lying ***
You so and so,
You didn’t know,
That she would go?
As if the general
Didn’t tell you though,
You’re claiming ignorance
And putting on a show
You lying ***
You so and so
Keep it up
And your nose will grow
Just like the puppet
Pinocchio
You’re trying to reach
A new plateau
You lying ***
You so and so,
You paint a picture
But you’re no Van Gogh
You’re gonna fall
Like a domino
See you belong
In a minstrel show
You lying ***
You so and so,
You hired her
Don’t cha think
We know?
That you’re duplicitous
As world leaders know, yo
Like Canada's Justin Trudeau
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 7:16 PM UTC
A bird in an aurulent billed mud-face,Living as a four foot two inch dragon in a San Franciscan cave,
Lifts off from a hot breathed murmur of Gideon.
Even in night the whole grandeur of movement
Soaking in red beeping heart-pangs
Fasten to the thrusts of his arms.
This post of vainglory was the opening of the year.
In July's open pores,
On a spatial plateau of Dodonian oak.
The Penguin
Unveils his weakened voice.
Flattening into a wide arrow
Draped from Carina he
Sails Westward. Barefooted through the Anavros
Molting under deep helplessness and melancholia.
With his inlaid eyes faced askance
The penguin broods
Among the day's songs
Cast into the poetry of the lyre,
Stretched upwards from Paradise Bay to Colchis,
Where his ebony wings
Soak into the palms of Peleus
Suffering only where the arrows have flung.
Downside up, with children in a pocket of blood,
Among supergigantic siren songs and muse poems
Sewing teeth into a spot of Earth
Races towards a column of toppling strakes.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
Zeus who was in control
A powerful god who was bold
He had a son called Hercules
Hercules being the protector for the weak and defense against the strong
His strength beyond mortal men
Hercules was always the victor at the end
But let’s more to a new seen
Follow me and you will see what I mean
Our tail involves ancient Rome
But the task will be defeat Rome’s army
The call is for Hercules to use his strength one last time
But Hercules has become old, but still his might
King plateau has a beef with Hercules
The king himself states, “my army is too powerful for you to defeat”
But that’s what plateau thinks
However, king plateau must remember, Hercules is guided by his father Zeus, who is a god and could make his temple shrink
ZEUS THE ALL POWERFUL GOD
SO KING PLATEAU WANTS TO TEST OLD MAN HERCULES STRENGTH
YET, HERCULES ALWAYS DEMONSTRATED HIS STRENGTH IN THE PASS IN HIS YOUTH
HERCULES IS NOW OLD, BUT CAN STILL DEMONSTRATE A BEHOLD
NOW KING PLATEAU WANTED HERCULES TO BEND A BAR
THE BAR BEND IN STAGES ONE BEND AT A TIME
HE THEN CRUSHED A SMALL ROCK IN HIS BARE HANDS
TRULY, HERCULES HAD NOT LOSS ANY OF HIS HERCULEAN SGRENTH
BUT COULD KING PLATEAU AND HIS ARMY GO THE LENGTH?
SO THE MISSION BECAME CLEAR
MAKE THE WEAK HAVE FEAR
BUT HERCULES WILL ALWAYS BE NEAR
SO LET THE BATTLE BEGIN
KING PLATEAU’S SOLDIERS WERE BATTLING THE WEAK
YET, THE WEAK WEREN’T EXACTLY POWERFUL, BUT WERE MEEK
OLD MAN HERCULES CAME ONTO THE SEEN
LIFTED HEAVY OBJECTS AS IF THEY WERE TOYS AND HEISTED THEM TOWARDS KING PLATEAU’S ARMY
NOT BAD FOR AN OLD MAN HERCULES
STRENGTH HAVING NO BOUNDARIES
YET A MISSION WAS AT HAND
KING PLATEAU’S ARMY WAS BEING DEFEATED BY HERCULES LIKE BOWLING PINS
KING PLATEAU WAS BECOMING WORRIED AS HE COULD BE DETHRONED
SO HERCULES ENTERED THE TEMPLE AND LIFTED KING PLATEAU IN HE AIR AND THROUGH HIM TO THE GROUND
SUDDENLY, KING PLATEAU GRABBED A SWORD AND STARTED SWINGING,
AND HERCULES ALSO GRABBED A SWORD AND MADE HIS ATTACK ON KING PLATEAU IN A FIGHT TO THE FINISH
BECAUSE OF HERCULES STRENGTH, HE MANGED TO STAB THE SWORD INTO KING PLATEAU’S HEART, AND HE DIED INCIDENTLY
HERCULES RUSHED OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE TO USE HIS STRENGTH ONE LAST TIME, AND DESTROY THE TEMPLE FOR GOOD
THE TEMPLE COULDN’T WITHSTAND THE STRESS OF OLD MAN HERCULES STRENGTH, ANMD IT CRUMBLED INTO DESTRUCTION
AT THAT POINT, THE OLD MAN HERCULES FINALLY DIED, AND THE VICTOR FOR THE WEAK NO MORE
MYTHICAL WAS NOW IN HEAVEN’S HANDS
BUT OLD MAN HERCULES WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED FOR HIS STRENGTH ALWAYS IN DEMAND
The clouds have gathered into darkness
This is a day of sadness
But the weak can contest in being the witness
Strength coming from the skies
Hercules accomplishments having an understanding in being wise
But we must realize
The sunshine is the life of Hercules
The past having a sunset
But Hercules will always be remembered in having full effect.
Apr 12, 2018
Apr 12, 2018 at 4:52 AM UTC
I see birds fly
from this concrete predicament
faces in ****** hands
I hurt and I cry
my hands are wet
trapped
on Pilates plateau
a place where bugs die.
May 11, 2021
May 11, 2021 at 4:55 PM UTC
The headdress danced in the sun
On the Indian's hollow
And eyeless skull.
It was framed in feathers
Brightly-colored serpents in the
Salty air flames licking at
Dancing and ***** bare feet.
Dark-skinned, tall, high cheekbones
And solemn eyes full of
Wisdom--he surveys the
Badlands, Moses's rigid face
Blank and silent in a
Heatwave desert.
Beyond the teepees and the
Black bonfire smoke and
The buffalo rhythm, the plateau has
Risen, bleached bones
Litter the plains as a constant
Reminder.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 2:44 PM UTC
Contrapuntal
— adjective, Music.
- pertaining to counterpoint.
- composed of two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If we set this site poetic to music,
there would be two
contrapuntal melodies.
A harmony of disharmony,
met and matched by a
single refrain,
a harmonizing voice
meeting the needs
of the sopranos, the altos.
the low of the lowest basso.
I am in love,
life painting me beautiful.
The dawn is cracking,
opening my heart with love.
*I am a heartbroken shell,
in a living hell of neverending.
There is no light
in my bed at night, bulb broken.*
Let's write of joy,
celebrate reunification, singularity,
of our place,
our happy collision,
our universal location.
For where you are,
I exist,
no where else.
*Less than nothing,
gave and given in,
found a lost plateau
where there is no substance, only
pieces of broke,
pieces of ache,
pieces of brown glass*
I live you.
I die you.
There is but one color, and it is the color of us.
There is but one color, and it is colorless.
There is one vow for two,
the vow is one!
Keeping it,
natural, easy,
time is unrecorded,
forever is immeasurable.
*There are no vows ever kept,
only lies,
passing promises of vanity.
Never is the only time
that can be recorded.*
A new world symphony
that never ends.
What then
the unifying
refrain
uniting joy and pain?
Write it down.
Write it up.
Write it and believe.
We will listen,
and care,
having been there,
both ways,
both sides now
we are
write
alongside you.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:22 AM UTC
Two billion years ago
the river we call Colorado
opened a **** in the Kaibab Plateau
sculpting sandstone, granite, and limestone spectra
on the rugged canyon walls -
reflecting the seering Arizona sun.
Millennial torrents scoured the surface.
Juniper and Aspen, torn from the expanding banks,
****** into the river's red-stained vortex.
All the while the restless Colorado,
obedient to gravity's law,
scoured its bed a mile below the rim.
The last dinosaur perished - choked by volcanic soot.
Pangaea rumbled, groaned and split
and an eye-blink ago our African parents
stood to take their first faltering steps.
Their progeny crossed the Bering bridge
roaming south to build stone shelters
tucked against these canyon walls.
Did the Havasupai huddle in fright
of the jagged firelight searing the skies -
pounding the air across the hollows?
And emerging at storm’s end
did they gaze at the rainbow mist
spread over the buttes and valleys?
After dusk, with fires withering to embers,
did they rest supine,
heads pillowed on their arms,
pondering the jewel case universe above?
November, 2006
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 10:51 AM UTC
Often, on quiet days, I wade through forest paths to the outer most regions of town. Close to the brink of wilderness where the humming sounds of cars and popping noises of God knows what can still be observed. Yet, the pure land surrounding has been blessed to be untouched and unblemished. Here, I retreat. I circle the bend and climb a hill until I reach an isolated plateau of nature reserve. Where natural phenomenon rise and cease in incessant and lullabic oscillation. As if to unplug my mental cords and to store away my worry, fear, concepts and systems. I reach a haven of unity. Although I own no land for myself, out here I can't help but feel this lost land of paradise is fully mine. However, I would like to do away with the notion of possession and self and here I can get closer to doing so. As if I were a small, beautiful water droplet being plucked from that cruel water resistant surface and to glide gracefully back into an encompassing body of water where the temperature is the state of my mind. And on occasion I notice another solemn being, clearly human, stumbling down the same path I had managed to carve and from atop the raised plateau, I can watch them. They circle and turn back, but I can't help but wonder if they feel the same as I do. And sometimes I think to approach them slowly and calmly and inquire about philosophical concepts. But I wish not to disturb what is so beautifully held in the essence of the silent forest. I would wonder what knowledge or truths these men and women had attained during this life and if it were to resonate with my own. Or possibly to share. In the town and at the refill station I dare not to inquire about such trivial matters but instead I nod my head or note the weather. But I cannot help but imagine and sometimes even feel that there is something deep within us and the space and entities surrounding us that is ineffable and profound. Yet it seems that it is lost in the thicket of ideas, concepts, and biased reality just like the sunlight in a dense, cold, unlit forest. And I have convinced myself that if we could clear even enough of the baggage we carry as entrapped souls that we could create a more beautiful, serene, and harmonious state of unity and achieve transcendent heights of being right here and now.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC