We built a town from nothing, And there we lived our breaths; We raised our children on these lanes, And saw our parent's deaths -- We built our meanings here in blood, Then came to find, somehow, That all the meant the world to us Is full forgotten Now
Tag: Vanity
The Pride of Lucy
Lucy sat out in the sun
In cold and clear September;
She modeled for us her new life,
I always will remember
The pride she wore upon her face
As she soaked in the rays;
Not knowing pills and Crystal Head
Would soon cut short her days.
The pride of Lucy, young and full
Of beauty and its power;
The sharpened razor blades, so cold,
That hacked to death
The flower
(“The Pride of Lucy” – 12-27-2015)
The Music of Emptiness
We have known the music of emptiness,
and truth be told,
at times, we have sought it.
Times when we seek,
not to make sense of it all,
but to accept the senselessness
and vanity that comprises much
of life.
This is not sadness,
it is a hollowness:
this us not despair,
it is more like
resignation —
But it is also
a type of detoxification,
an emptying out
to allow for the possibility
of refilling.
When The Old Things Don’t Work Anymore
The old jokes do not make him laugh
The old dress doesn’t make him look
The old him was all into her
The lapse of time was all it took
The vanity she entertained
The love she thought forever true
The hollowness we come to see
In who we are
And all
We do
On The Transience and Vanity of Being A Writer
He let imagination play
And spill across each fevered page;
Of life spent at a breakneck pace,
Of love and hate and
Sex and rage
And peaceful moments that would touch
The hearts of any who might see;
But wonders now, and over-much,
If all of it’s
Not vanity
He wanted what he wrote to shine,
The brilliance of a million suns;
But now, he simply wants to write
Some thoughts that you’d read
More than once
(“On The Transience and Vanity of Being A Writer” – 7-11-2015)
So Familiar
A life led by blind desire,
Lurching toward the funeral pyre
Happenstance spun into meaning,
Private times spent posing, preening
Strings of words on worthless air,
Tableaus struck with no one there
Emptiness and vanity,
Sheltered by insanity
Carved from cells once formed by bliss:
So familiar
All of this
(“So Familiar” – 10-23-2014)
Raining It In
It’s raining where I work today
But I’ll show up and earn my pay
Or try to: try to prove my worth
As though each day was a new birth
But through this pane of glass I see
The wild world in front of me
And hear the booming thunder roll
All things beyond my weak control
The vanity that is my life
The constant struggle, strain and strife
That daily I myself surround
Like rain, as it comes tumbling down
like my own
dissolving
such expectations
as are borne
on light winds
blown through passing thoughts
like my own damned vanity
How desolate this spot is now…
How desolate this spot is now.
I walk around the emptiness –
What once was meant as life support
Lies dead among the quietness
And as the summer shadows move,
I hear the evening start its song;
The sun is headed home to rest,
And I should head home too,
Ere long
= = = = =
(I actually took this photo, which is a rarity. – Owen)