Smile Fool Smiles: Live Peace

Who taught us violence in which we persist?
Or do most of us senseless battles resist?
In wars fought, of what do our lives consist?
Who are those few who’ve taught us to insist
On yet another bloody campaign to persist?

Why should people say this is the only way?
Why stay the course of the few in dismay?
Why bend knee, bow head, enter the fray?
Why keep spilling blood for high price to pay
For the few power-Who, who darken the day?

Chance the chance to live and dance;
Laugh the laugh to skip and prance;
Play the plays in senseless trance;
Love all love in endless romance;
Smile fool smiles with the sand lance!

Hopping and happy-hoping,
Popping corporate bubbles,
Stopping all of the troubles,
Flopping in sandcoin rubble
Dropping in burning stubble,
Making peace in the struggle.

How can we stop all of this insanity?
How can we trash corporate vanity?
How can we mute violent profanity?
How can we love away inhumanity?

Who taught us violence in which we persist?
Or do most of us senseless battles resist?
Why should people say this is the only way?
To keep spilling blood; such high price to pay?

No! Dance away all the dæmonic dismay!
No! Sing away the cacophony of decay!
No! Laugh away the array of going astray!
No! Smile away the anger, animosity today!
No! Play away the sick, diabolic bouquet!
No! Feast away the replay of power display!
No! Wear away the backroom underplay!

Never cease being drooling fools for peace…
Peace on earth and from birth goodwill to all

After all, who taught us violence in which we persist?
So smile cool, fool smiles ten thousand miles long…
Live peace, be peace, and our world will be at peace.

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Note: Originally posted in November 2015. Perhaps this is the poem I should have submitted to Poets for Peace. LOL  Oh well, too late for that, but not too late to share with readers/followers who may have missed it the first time around… I’m actually rather proud of this piece, if I may humbly say so. Blessings to one and all!

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Me, My Resume

No, this may not be traditional,
But for me it is quite transitional;
You see, this is my real resume
And it might just dismay you
In the Human Resource Department,
Where everything is compartmental
In quite a parental, judgmental way;
Nevertheless, the right question
Any bright person usually asks is,
‘How can I make myself appealing?
And without really revealing myself?’
But I’ve changed the question,
And I’ve done so without hesitation;
Now I’m asking, ‘What do I want
This impersonal company to know…
To know about me?’ And this will be
My dismaying resume, for you see
It no longer concerns me to burn
With passion for disappointment
In totally lackluster employment
With no real enjoyment, and I refuse
To falter and bow at the company altar
While singing the psalter of profit
And productivity in virtual captivity
To a corporation demanding adoration;
I am me, you see, and I have a life
Worth living outside company walls,
Whether they stand or crack and fall;
And all in all, no manager will put me
In danger of losing my authentic self,
And no CEO will steal away the real me
No matter the pay or promotion … no!
I’m one who’ll cause quite a commotion
Because although I’m very compassionate,
I’m also rather passionate, so you see,
I’d rather be a catalyst for change
Than an adjutant to business as usual;
So understand, my heart is a work of art,
And I’m a writer, sometimes a fighter
With pen in hand to make unusual demands,
And, so, often I write with a bit of a bite,
And you need to know this in my resume…
My resume, which is really an invitation,
Even a proposition to get to know me …
Yes, me! Because I am my own resume!

Battle: Once More

Your chest is tight, full of fright
But you fight cause you know you’re right,
But then the light grows dim
And life seems grim and dreary,
And you grow so weary of the fight;
You take flight into the night…
And there it is, the draught of poison
To take that will make everything better,
Even though you’ve been taught not to sip
Or even let it touch your lips,
But you’re caught between pain and confusion
And the illusion of sleep that will keep
You in peace or at least give you rest
Even if it is in the arms of the beast,
So you lose all might, forget what is right,
Move to the goblet in sight, and you drink…
Blight fills your soul,
Your face turns ashen white,
And you hit the floor to fight no more…
At least until you wake again to take sword
In hand once more to face the same battle as before,
Once more

Just Pretend It’s Love?

How is it someone stumbles into our lives
And bumbles us into love when deep inside
We know it’s all wrong, this relationship
Is long on dreams that don’t belong to us?
And why is it we ignore proof of the truth
That friends and family beg us to realize
And not trivialize? They can see the tree
Is so gnarled and poisoned, and so can we,
So why is it we continue on with such glee
As if the tree were so magnificent with no
Deficit, and even sibilate when confronted
With the truth? Oh, how is it we get caught
In a web of deception without any reception
Of real love, and then try to beguile others
With our smile, pretending that everything
Is grand and dandy, when inside we’ve lost
Our heart and the better part of that life
We used to live? And why do we try so hard
To make that stumbling, bumbling someone
Into an altogether other and better someone
More acceptable and respectable when they
Are really quite despicable? Is it to save face
When in reality we could bow out with grace?
Ah! Ah! Tell me how it is someone stumbles
Into our lives and then bumbles us into love
When all along we know inside it’s wrong?
How and why this travesty of insane pain!

From the Vaults of the Past, Live Today

Flowered wreaths are laid on graves and flags are waved,
Precious photos are saved and placed in handsome albums,
As should be for you and me and all who are near and dear;
Old movies are played, prayers prayed, as memories fade,
And old books are read while nostalgic looks are shared
From the bed of the past to make something glorious last
For as long as possible… Ah! But is it not quite impossible
To resurrect what has gone, and do we not really suspect
That it is the present with which we dissent and the future
We rather resent as we recall only the pleasant of the past,
Of days gone by, focusing on the highs, ignoring the lows
Else they blow away our feelings in kneeling at the altar
Of history and the stories we have conjured in our minds
That bind our hearts to an idealism that ne’er existed?
Oh yes, to honor the dead is a golden banner of humanity,
As this helps us keep our sanity and guard against vanity;
But there is the danger that in fear and anger we simply
Desire to live and expire in the past rather than live
And fight now for what will last!
Yes, always remember the past…
No, do not dismember the present

Loneliness

Day after day, you threw them all away,
Friend upon friend who’d only sent love;
Vainly you mainly imagined they harmed,
And you alarmed yourself into loneliness,
Copious thoughts so odious in your mind
Of a kind that play an ace in the center
Of your soul, and punch a hole too painful
To be filled with mere frills and thrills
Of your vacuous life so rife with suffering;
And all the while you endure painful trial
Of self-inflicted loneliness without caress
Of tenderness of truly free friendliness;
And how very tragic that you must abide in…

Loneliness

 

Note: Originally published in June of this year, but since it seems to be receiving some renewed attention, I thought I’d share it with my dear readers once again. Blessings to one and all!

Parent or Pretend?

Sometimes it’s easier to ignore the problem, pretending it’s not there,
Even though it’s staring you in the face, or tell yourself it’ll go away
While the monster grows, showing itself more and more, boring a hole
In your soul; oh, but it seems simpler just to keep up a ‘normal’ pace
As you look into your sweet child’s face and you clearly see the trace
Of pain and suffering; it’s far more comforting to remember your child
As that meek and mild infant, that toddler at play on sunshiny days…
But deep inside you know something is wrong, something is there that
Does not belong, but you’d rather sing a happy song than to bring the
Problem out into the open and talk about it, with openness and honesty,
And tackle the trouble head-on; you’d rather live in a bubble of joy,
However fake than to take the time and make the hard effort to fight
An unnerving battle with all your might … but the sight of your child
Decaying will never be made right by grand illusions and self-delusion;
So what will it be? Love that goes above and beyond the call of duty —
It is your duty — or intense pretense of caring without bearing any
Weight of responsibility for the fate of your very own offspring? Eh?
Sometimes real love is rough and tough precisely because it is love!

Ah! The Writing on the Wall

And so I began again cause you lured me in,
Down the same ole trek at your beck and call
Even knowing I’d fall, but I was sand blind
On the unkind road with grace unbestowed

And the writing on the wall
Told me the horror story all,
But I was bound to stand tall
Never flat on my face I’d fall

I walked the path laid before me as you bade
Prayed with every step as your flute played
Some sad, silly song for one gone so wrong
Along with the throng of other foul lovers

And the writing on the wall
Told me the horror story all,
But I was bound to stand tall
Never flat on my face I’d fall

And I should’ve known cause I’d been shown
What pitfalls lay ahead when in bed with you,
What score of the devilish whore you’d settle
With innocence in dissonance of sad coronach

Ah! But the writing on the wall
And the horror did not forestall
My hell-bent mind to stand tall
Though on my ugly face I’d fall!

Oh, the heaven-sent letter was written clear
Without smudge or smear, to show the better
Of choices to make in chorus of angelic voices
… but I began again cause you lured me in

You lured me in again with one sweet call,
Though the writing was clearly on the wall,
Writing on the wall…
Writing on the wall…

As the Wind Whips Round the Corner

How can you know, when the wind whips round the corner,
What debris it will bring, or what song it will sing?
Perhaps flower petals will fly around you, bound for
Nowhere and everywhere, and perhaps some song sung
By myriad colors of rainbow ecstasy will leave you
Breathlessly joyful, or again some elegy unexpected
Turn your heart mournful in sudden loss of love so dear
And near now gone on, as the wind whips round the corner;
How can you know what life will show from the shadows,
Or when you may see the bone hand holding scythe high
Under dark sky? And will you question why now, then bow?
And what angel may fly low to brush your fevered brow
With heavenly wing to bring cool peace at conclusion
Of your lease on life, as wind whips round the corner?
As the wind whips round the corner…

 

In My Multi-Emotive Vest

To vault the mountain of my emotions is difficult
As they madly swirl sometimes like a typhoon
Threatening to sweep me away and turn my day
Into some morbid burial of the psyche
Or like an avalanche descending too quickly
For me to escape and I’m swept down into dark valley,
Stark raving mad where I’d once had sanity,
But vanity will not allow me to open up my heart
And share with anyone the part that hurts so much,
Even hurts to touch, it’s such an excruciatingly
Deep wound, or more than one, and it’s hidden inside
Where no sun shines, and so I’m underground
In my own soul with only the sound of my own cries
As I say goodbye till the tears stop flowing
And new wind starts blowing, showing me some way
To begin a new day even in the middle of the night
In the middle of my plight, despite the blight
Of my soul with hole to large to fill,
But there is a certain thrill to it all, especially
In the knowledge that I’m alive and so I thrive
On these tumultuous emotions, these feelings unbounded,
Though hounded by sad-gladness like some ugly dæmon,
And trusting-paranoia and adventurous-fear
And happy tears and jolly-melancholy and all the rest,
And so I know I’m at my best in multi-emotive vest,
Though I can’t enjoy all of the world
While locked inside these four walls…

Note: This is,  I believe,  my third stream of consciousness poem