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)
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)
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
dissolving
such expectations
as are borne
on light winds
blown through passing thoughts
like my own damned vanity
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)
stretch out your hand
and feel the vanity —
spout off on progress, that
inanity
close off your thought
to who and what you are —
stretch out your hand,
the problem
isn’t
far
We build each our walls
But through gaps
All the light gets through
= = = = =
© Ingalin | Dreamstime.com – Cathedral De Santiago Is A Roman Catholic Church, Antigua Guatemala Photo
Out here, abandoned in the grass,
A vintage filling station:
Where many sat preoccupied
By labor or vacation
As fuel was pumped and windows washed
Supporting life’s-won fruits
To aid the modern family
In nuclear pursuits.
Out here, abandoned in the grass,
And desolate to view,
The end of every precious thing
Once loved for being
New
So accustomed to noise are we,
Our minds provide it
In our rare moments of silence.
When we cannot feel the world anymore,
We attempt to become the world,
A process fraught with anxiety,
And rife with chaos.
It is the silence we fear:
Discovering only then
What we truly believe the world to be,
Past our lies and our slogans:
Emptiness and echoes,
Regrets and recriminations,
And a desire, at all costs,
To keep the noise going
