I’ve wanted an image conveying who I am;
I’ve toyed with badgers and psychedelia.
It hit me, though, today, what I am like.
I’m like a seashell.
Passive, on the beach;
Just watching others as they amble by,
But if you hold me up close to your ear,
You might hear the ocean,
The past or the future.
You might hear colors,
Or dream sounds.
Perhaps my real work was in
Making this shell
Into a home;
But you are welcome
To peek in
Or listen in.
Or just walk on by.
(“Seashell” – 3-20-2016)
Most friendship is a blessing, but
I think mine is a curse:
For when I help, I often hurt
And just leave people
Worse
“Writers write”, they say.
Yes, well, that seems true enough.
I know that I do.
But like many other things
I might just take it too far
Behind these words, there is a me;
I’ve hidden him for years —-
I’ve been afraid of God-knows-what,
And lived within those fears.
I’ve tried to find the heart’s extremes
From safe within the middle;
I’ve reached for objectivity,
But in this life, there’s little.
For who and what I am determines
How I think and feel,
And there’s no me at all, if I
Cannot be truly real.
So I have friends, and family,
And love, here, where I’m at:
Behind these words there is a me,
A lucky me,
At that
across the near and distant sea
she sees a future still unsure
amid the world’s inconstancy
an admixture of what is pure
and what is stained and bruised is there.
but she knows as she gazes far,
be it on land or sea or air,
it’s farthest to
the place you really
are
Why do I love the empty places so?
There has to be a reason – I don’t know –
But I have felt like this from early youth:
Where others see abyss,
I see
The truth
.
I am the evil I rail against
I am the vanity I see everywhere
I am the target of my own invective
I am the skulking shadow of cowardice
.
I who approach these words do so in fear
I who fail almost as often as I try
I who wanted always to be a hero
I who cannot change the world’s ways
.
I can, however, keep trying
I can succeed, albeit occasionally
I can be a hero in never giving up the fight
I can make today a better day than yesterday
.
If you are under-challenged
You’ll be called hyperactive
It’s easy to be virtuous
When you are unattractive
When girls think boys are all the same
That’s what they’re sure to find
Since eyes point out instead of in
We’re, all of us, self-blind
