everything except himself

Samsara

Human eyes,
Fickle and callous and full of surprise
At the sight of you –

My heart longs to tell you
That you are the very model of perfection to me
And that my eyes cannot properly see
All of the things you could mean to me.

But you have walked out of my life,
Trouncing upon that inspiration,
Leaving it in a pile of broken words,
Lined with your corrections,
And my mind cannot fathom how you would want to be
Anything but perfect to me!
And, so, that part of me chokes and dies on its words,
That you would not want to be beautiful, lovely, and distinct
But want to be planned and copied and cold.

The part of me that loved you will yet revive
And find another
And another
And another
Until either love has bloomed or hope has died
And continue still
That perfection was seen in you!

Thickly spread across the sky,
Mounted up so high,
How quickly they go by!

Up there my feelings lie,
Yet down here am I,
And I cannot get away.

Would that I were borne on the current of the wind,
This stationary life I would transcend
In the sky-river’s bend.

Up there to my feelings tend
But lose myself to the corner’s trend,
And I cannot get away.

How low I would swoop
Only to feel my heart droop
That we are stuck in this forever-loop.

Up there where my feelings coup,
We all march on like a troop,
And I cannot get away.

Standing still is our foe,
Defeated effortlessly by the air’s unending flow
So much so that I long for the ground below!

Down there my feelings go
In tears or snow,
And I cannot get away.

Something I rewrote in an attempt to get noticed by other users on Deviant Art. At least when people randomly fave my stuff, it’ll be relatively high quality.

Dear one for whom my heart does long,
Soft night rays play in light of your being:
Your beauty shines transformed to song,
And your voice descends serene.

Laughter trails your form like wind
As your carefree intent is shown.
As the contours of your body bend,
Sweeter melodies may never again be known.

Your voice and grace are all in place –
Inspiration gently brought
By moves of greatest form and chase –
And you are desirably sought.

What life you bring to this lonesome face,
Dancing through my apt mind you race.

I haven’t talked to or seen the girl that poem’s about in 6 years. But, we’re in the process of moving, and so I found the poem in a large notebook under my bed. It’s hard to believe it’s been six years, at that. I found myself crying, remembering her. If ever there were a mistake, it was not telling her how I felt, but I was so young then. And now, with that horribly fiendish thing called the “Internet” (namely “facebook.com”) I’ve got the chance to again, but I don’t think I can work up the nerve to do it.

Now, if anyone were to ask me how to handle the situation, I’d tell them to go for it! Specifically, I’d tell the person not to let the mistake continue. You know, tell this girl how much she meant to you and how much you’ve thought about her since. Tell her how much you’ve missed her and how you just wanted to say “Hi!” after all these years. You know, tell her that, for what it’s worth, she’s always had a place in your heart, and, you know, it’s unconditional. I mean, no matter what’s happened, you still care about this person and nothing — not time, not hurt feelings, not anything — can change that.

I’m afraid that she’ll just write me off, though. But, I think I’m going to try anyway.

Poor Prometheus!
I, if no one else, know that
The true fire is not a flame but a fountain!

In contrast, our daily lives
Are a sinking boat
On which our fair futures float.
Though, we don’t get very far –
Life is a pond
Where we and the algae dumbly abscond.

Lying on our stomach with the water’s floor,
We claim to see the whole world and more.
To us, it is all darkness at best,
But, Darkness, confess!
Worlds within worlds from you can be wrest!

So I light my torch with that knowledge –
For in dreams and lighter things
We are not to rules bound
But in that free space found
To break or hold laws
For our own unwieldly cause.

See past what is in front of you –
Look into the depths!
Cast out your soul like a bucket,
And draw in what you can.
Drink deeply like the sponge you are!
And maybe you will go so far
As to tell the algae what it is
And tell your surroundings what they are not:
That they are not the whole, but just a part.

Well, pump me full of lead; I'll be an Iron Man.
Make it a heart; I'll be a lion.
Tear me to pieces for tryin',
But don't go blamin' me for dyin'
For all the things you been a-cryin'.
Gotta get my feet back on the ground and vyin'
For a place that's not so tryin'.
Whatever happened to livin', lovin', dyin'?
'cause loneliness is all I've been findin',
And loneliness ain't much of a finding.
I guess this ain't a happy ending,
More like a rough and awkward beginning.

Today’s just not my day. I guess the shower curtain didn’t like my poem because it fell and tried to take me with it.

It's gotta be a party!
Yeah, you gotta be a part.
It's gotta be fancy!
Oh, you just gotta be a fan.
Yeah, it's gotta have substance.
Everybody's got a stance, for crying out loud.

But you gotta be substantial
-- And money talks --
So, you probably gotta be financial;
It's all about the dollars and cents.
We don't need your common sense!
We make the laws, my friend,
And one of us will be President in the end.

"Oh, it's good to be a candidate,"
And that's about the only candid moment you'll get.
The rest of the time I gotta use what I've spent 6 years to learn:
Time is just something to burn.
I'll throw everything at you that I can muster;
I've just gotta filibuster!
And who cares what I say,
As long as I get my way?

Woah, woah, woah!
"It should be illegal"?
You know, you don't seem normal...
But, you know, I'm a salesman at heart,
Here's an advil with which I'm willing to part.
Take it for the headache --
You deserve a break.

"Bite my tongue"?
Oh, you're no fun.
I'm not doing anything wrong.
Here, let me play you a pop song!

"You're not listening"?
But I hear you just fine with this thing!
I just received it in the mail,
And there's a warranty if it should fail:
It's a pack of ear plugs
That fit nice and snug.

See?
This is perfect for me.

Oh, it's the darndest thing
To see that thing take wing.
It trips and it falls
And it kind of crawls,
But, when it finally reaches the sky
And you catch the look in its eye,
You'd think it thought it were a king or something. 

It's something else, really.
You know, if it were me,
I'd stick to watching the ground from the sky,
Somewhere way up high,
Instead of treading on unknown territory
And proving that life and fate and gravity are all still dejectory to your planned trajectory.
If you can't believe that,
Just watch Earth's laws lay this dumb bird down flat.

You'd almost think he didn't know he was a bird,
The way he always acts so absurd.
You'd think he'd have learned to be graceful,
At least how to hide it, no matter how awful,
But, you know, he's awfully cheeful,
Dragging mouth after mouth and claw after claw full.
Never mind that he never makes it very far,
He's his own personal Caesar. 

Look, now he's trying to cross that river!
Well, he's floating or gliding, maybe either,
And probably drowning a bit.
And, you'll all qip,
"Really, in a river, he shouldn't have carried so much,"
But he's extinct now, anyhow.

This is part of what I’m submitting to creative writing for an upcoming meeting. The rest of it is at home, so I’ll add it when I leave college for the day.

I stood alone at the onset of the part,
Blinded by the spotlight's piercing dart:

"Who can say what a man is?
The choice is only his."

I drew that line from a mem'ry,
Some great fire's puff of smoke caught in a chim'ney,
And now I find myself in a haze,
Trying to think back to those days,
The days that seem so far away,
Like the brief curtain draw 'fore a play.
And though for now it be gone,
It will again shadow the spot I act upon.

Is it greed to want attention,
To want to effect some lasting retention?
Or is it only honorable to pass without mention,
To fade from the forefront into declension?

Before this curtain fall,
I will strike you all;
I will present you with my every day,
And sell it to you in a most colorful way:

I will steal a face from my audience,
Wear it like a mask in every sense:
After a time, I will consume it,
Take another, and assume it.
And, when I am floating in a sea of two-sided faces,
I will call you from your places:
"Here is your trial:
Find yours amongst the pile!"
And I will pick them from the sum,
And hand them out to everyone:
"This is the story's maxim:
Yours is the same as his, as hers, as them!"
And I will take the mask that's left,
And place my face into its cleft,
And just as you will go to interrupt me, burst,
"I am man!" and interrupt you first.

It was you! It was you! It was you I heard,
Though you had not said a word.
Here in this dusky sight,
Wrapped in rays of yellow and white light,
It was you that I heard speak to me,
Though you I could not see clearly.

Quietly,
I let my mind fall into the great eternity,
And here am I granted such a dream,
As real as life would ever seem,
Only to forget when I am just as silently woken,
And the ever-so-secret veil of day-dreaming is broken.

You told me something simple and plain,
But I would have it just the same,
Even if we passed through this for time one-thousand-and-two,
I want to hear the same thing from you,
Something ever-true,
Déjà vu.

Well, I had fun over the weekend. Jess got to come over to my house for Sunday, and I got to see her on Monday. Consequently, I also locked my keys in the car on Monday, so Jess got to go back to my house with me to pick up the spare. In other news, I learned how to put a hubcap back on a car. I also learned that they will still fall off if more than a couple of the holder things are broken, and that spiffy dudes in black trucks, smoking cigars, will honk at you to tell you that you lost your holder-deficient hubcap on the curb.

You were never one for ritual,
And, for you, absence is quite habitual.
You are more so in the gaps
Than along the planned lines of maps.
Had I failed to meet you there,
I would still cast this world a cold and icy stare.
Expand my life like the open sky!
I have truly lived and now can die:
Kill my worthlessness
And suck the heat from my address!
Obliterate my anger
And leave me at peace there!
Bring the darkest parts of me to light
And make me right!
You, for whom I condone,
Do not leave me alone.