A giant box of
Ordered rows – unordered minds
Yet to reconcile
Tag Archives: Poem
Entrusted with Prisons
Like a baby bird, begging for food
Or a kitten, crying piteously for its mother,
They call out, again and again,
Repeating, unstopping,
Pleading to be heard –
Their cries echoing off their invisible bonds,
Imperceptible walls, strong as sullen stone,
Locking them away by will
Alone.
A Symbol of Hope
On Christmas Eve,
They gather round in reverence,
Ooh-ing and Ah-ing at the festive greens,
The shimmering ornaments,
The flickering lights, and
The shining star.
A lift to the spirits,
A joyous tradition –
In their words,
A symbol of hope,
Peace, and love.
Happiness.
A few days later,
They gather round in a rush.
Muttering and grumbling at the horrible chore,
The monotonous removal,
The continuous wrapping, and
The annoying untangling.
A chore to be done quickly,
A season completed –
Stored away,
A symbol hidden,
Unseen and unfelt.
Forgotten.
I Tried to Argue Once
I tried to argue once,
And they patted me on my head.
“I understand your feelings,
But you’re wrong,”
Was all they said.
I tried to argue twice,
And they shook their heads and sighed
At my irrational neediness,
At my hormones,
At my pride.
I tried once more – and once again –
And once again nobody heard.
And I found I argue best,
With most success,
When I never say
A word.
Of Human Comfort
Obsessed with order and logic,
They lined time up in a row.
They broke it up into
Digestible bits –
Applied math to a
Natural flow.
Imperfect and flawed,
The system remains
365 – or sometimes 366 – days.
Beginning again and
Continuing on,
Something new –
Something old –
Both illusion and dawn.
From Living Death
It happened almost naturally,
A footstep, a raised head.
It emerged from the shadows,
From confinement so deep and still,
From an invisible cage,
From living death.
Seemingly unaffected, it stepped forward,
Creating, completing as once before.
Until the trembling, the fear,
Consumed without warning, without cause
Eroding the ground from beneath its feet,
Consuming the light and sound,
Sucking away even the air
In a terrible pressure,
Pushing it beyond endurance,
Beyond hope until it shook
With the violence of an earthquake,
A silently screaming storm –
Collapsing, unable to stand,
It crawled.
Ifs, Ands, Or Buts
Not your biggest problem
Of the day
There’s this song from the musical Working called “If I Could Have Been.” The first time I heard it, I laughed to myself a little because it’s so gloriously vague (“If I could’ve been what I could’ve been, I could’ve been somethin’.”), and all I could think was “That’s why you didn’t – you never had a specific plan or goal.” Harsh, yes, but true.
Even as I was enjoying the irony of the song, however, I was struck by the power of one line in particular:
“I never took no for an answer – it was tougher to fight all those ifs, ands, or buts.”
I think an artist of any kind has faced that struggle of being henpecked to death by other people’s doubts, ideas, and fears. In fact, I think it’s a common problem in any job. And in many ways, all those little attacks are much harder to deal with than a single “No.”
You see, no ends. The rest… not so much.
twytte 