Poems on Life
These poems on life represent the author's views on present existence. They suggest consideration of the reality about who we are at the core and how we may contribute to a better existence for ourselves and others.
Poem Titles
Poem Titles
|
A Gift
A Worthwhile Life Agreements Anger Beyond Understanding Circle of Joy Compliments Departing Disaster Ebb and Flow Epiphany Eulogy Footsteps I Cried Images Life Life's Promise |
Masks we Wear
My Space Now Personal Space Promises Reaching Truth Separation Sounds You Never Hear The Past The Touch Thoughts Truth and Gift Understanding What People Do When I Wept With Open Eyes Words |
A Gift
Among ten billion do we walk,
In this flat world we now exist.
Footprints in the sands of time we hone,
Beside our kin and many yet alone.
Our future and our past we ponder,
Willing our present state to them surrender,
Four million millennia past were precious particles spread,
From star exploded to form a rock serendipitously led
To rotate in equidistance from a sun, forever since to light the day,
And upon a moon reflect itself to illuminate the night,
Warming too in exact measure to life create and sustain ever bright.
Not how long did the sun in all its glory reign,
Nor how the universe did itself maintain
Must as time or space be pondered.
For no measure can apply that human mind can understand,
And, so, until awakening, must remain these questions grand.
Suffice that minutest particles from explosion pared,
Are in everyone and everything retained and shared,
And with these the memories of past existence carried.
In our short time though, only few seeds in conscious mind do grow,
But alas, with these revelations, we almost never wonder how we know.
In every form, animate or inanimate we store
From explosion forward or before.
A cosmic connection can we not escape
So through awareness linked, with all of universe we communicate,
Without words, understood, and fully able to relate.
Fifty million lifetimes to consciousness came we blind,
With only few along the way since then awareness pure to find,
How far then must humankind in evolution travel?
Awareness and bliss to know, with universe to feel connected,
And in everything we behold, to see the very same light reflected?
Agreements
Are we the most that we can be?
From pensive soul did question visit me.
Idling in comfort lane of life – not free,
Pawns of a tragic world I see.
In a state of pleasant bliss do they reside,
With no more than Maslow’s base do they abide.
Subservience to popular belief – this be their rapture,
Self-fulfillment no aim to capture.
Agreements made, accepting blindly to obey,
Thus laying down the stones of self-decay.
Assert this - no rules follow that others may conceive,
Should they sabotage the potential to achieve.
Circle of Joy
Where there is a will there is a way,
Where there is a way, there is hope,
Where there is hope, there is joy,
Where there is joy, there is a will.
Disaster
When disaster human race tears asunder,
Response a range from selfless rendering to plunder.
Outstretched hand a gift greater to helper than to helped,
Plunderer a taker, and when withheld no lasting comfort brings the spoil,
But he who takes to give survival to sufferer, how justified his toil.
The child in all sees beauty, and spontaneous help regards as fact,
But the child in us we lose, and with rational thought we act,
Weighing perceptions and treasures while from sufferer life is squeezed,
Then when apathy of brethren with power to provide should decline,
Their help arrives, but with it an aftertaste of brine.
There is no fear in need, just hope for good of man to arise,
Bringing neighbor with no hand to grasp a warm surprise,
And illuminate the divinity that in each and all resides.
That salvation of sufferers will resolve breed,
To others when tables turn reach out with speed.
Enduring Life
When day shall break and darkness be within,
We wake to present fear, then to endure
Long hours of dread for what may come.
To know enduring life, a task of all, not some.
Be life as gift of joy to find,
And time as service with our lives.
This, as rays of sun throw light,
Through eyes that shine and see a future bright.
Enduring Death
Death!
Of fragility and impermanence,
This message, O brutal harbinger you bring.
Moment you arrive, be you embraced
For joy be gone, but pain no more be faced.
Death!
Water of life through empty hands you pour,
And this be all you serve.
Peace yet unknown beyond the overflow,
That now in soul, a welcome place to know.
Ebb and Flow
Life – An ebb and flow,
Oh life, how we loved you,
When sensations of the flow did thrill us so,
Now when caught by ebb, and all displease,
For relief we beg, on bended knees.
Why expect from life what many do,
That all must pleasure bring, without the pain?
Life flows, and change our only constant true,
Life a gift of snow,
Melting in the heat of afterglow.
A candle burns within,
This our constant, this our kin;
And through movement of life’s ebb and flow,
Our light no hopes restrain,
And reaching out to others, this our gain.
Footsteps
Among ten billion do we walk,
In this flat world we presently exist.
Footprints in the sands of time we hone,
Some beside our kin embedded, yet many more alone.
Our future and our past we ponder,
Willing our present state to these surrender,
We walk at times in grief and pain,
At times in joy, singing out to life’s s refrain.
Over rocky roads have we our footsteps carried,
Through this, great strength we gained.
Upon smoothest of terrain too we’ve tread,
With laughter, with ecstasy - no fear, no dread.
Hardships of survival must we endure,
But rocks from sand are formed,
With gift of life a treasure are we blessed,
Need we want for any more our soul to be caressed?
Images
Whether in dream or conscious state I rest,
At images of music, painting, poetry I stare.
Answers found to questions in mind stirring,
Of what and how and where?
Mahler’s fifth, movement flowing, spirit soothing,
Eyes closed; sounds in color fill the night.
Red, yellow, blue appear; then leave and reappear.
Symphony transformed in soul’s respite.
Color portrait, next step to take awaiting,
On studio floor, among others its time to spend.
Black and white and values in between I see,
That not in color must it end.
Words, reflecting deep ponderings at night
Come rousing darkest sleep with light.
Then rushing to be caught before they’re gone,
Now shared with world this small insight.
I Wonder
I wonder whether I would be,
The person who I am today.
Were I to be another me,
In a land that’s near or far away?
Were I for instance to become,
Someone of power, wealth and greed?
And what if of a different race,
Or of a different creed?
On other hand, if would I be,
A child with hunger only to endure?
Of parent present not, but killed in act of war?
Or sufferer from illness with no cure?
From these two lives would I return,
A one with saddened soul now grown,
And could in peace no longer lay,
Until I fight to save, even though I be alone?
Or would I joyful be, to suffer not as she?
A someone glad to never now attain,
The grief that bled a heart so soft.
And so return without a stain.
When I in life of pain have lived,
I face the choice of self to will.
Health and belongings, come and go they might,
But birthright and morality, constant forces still.
Martyrdom
We think of you when all alone,
When others speak your name,
When heart in loving memory torn,
When human spirit no longer be the same.
We remember you, for in our grief
We breathe a joy we knew, a gift to me from you.
We are graced by lives though only lived in part,
We treasure the memory of you, a dream forever new.
We regret the end to tender lives,
We hope that you in death may serve as martyr’s bow,
We wish that change in law and human spirit come,
We dream that time you lost, to others you bestow.
We gaze each day and passion of your youth do see,
We are solaced that everlasting peace you know,
We are certain that because you lived,
For many innocents a longer, brighter life shall flow.
Music of the Deep
A song not sung,
Yet still is heard,
Comes from a heart,
That in it’s well is etched,
The lyrics of a tune,
Poured forth with might,
To fill the endless void,
With roaring silence of its sound,
That another heart can hear.
A poem not read,
That still can touch,
A soul starved for its words,
Is torn from pages of a book,
Written with a love’s intent
And strewn across the depths,
Of oceans filled with hope,
That cover the immensity,
Of earth’s buried soul.
A picture not painted,
That still can be seen,
Is created by the mind and hand,
Of a painters dreams in store,
And placed on an easel,
For those who care to see,
The colors of a rainbow,
And hold them close in memory.
Now
The past a now forever gone,
The future a now that neither is, nor may never be.
The present a now that fast presses into memory.
So force no choice must I, the only now is now,
With the world its claim to lay.
From first life, a million years four thousand times over to become,
Why then, in this flicker of an instant we call lifetime,
Exist should I in space erased from brief eternity?
Or in a moment not yet real, with anxiety I hope to see?
Can I not learn simply in the now to be?
In this twinkling with which I’m graced,
I become enraged, and kindred humankind debase,
My only reward a loss of now to face.
From needy, material and comfort I withhold, but whither to be sent?
Perhaps a future now where neither can be spent?
In this now my breath I savor; I feel my step and see.
As in prophets’ lesson, I do to others as I would have done to me.
I dream, not of that I once enjoyed or wish again to taste,
Nor of what, or where I will,
But of life, ideas, epiphany I dream.
Should in my now an effort to redress put forth,
Then in this flash must I find joy,
For what can the worth of a moment be
When absent from the light of its reality?
Truth and Gift
The truth is this,
That I am here.
The gift is this,
That here is now.
This truth as child,
I did deep know.
That here was here,
And here not there.
This gift as child
I did accept.
That now was now,
And now not then.
Today now taught
That simple truth is lie.
And here not here,
But there.
Today now taught,
Precious gift to reject,
Of now not now,
But then.
Now truth is dare,
That here is there,
And now is gone,
To a great beyond.
Promises
Two promises does life offer,
Evolve it will and end it must.
No other assurance does it make,
Not joy, not pain, not memory to forsake.
In departure lounge of life sit all,
The flight to take us far beyond awaiting,
What last whispering question must we sigh?
“What did define me, that I’ll be remembered by?”
And if upon this should we reflect,
Then ask ourselves we ought,
How did I to others my love show,
To be remembered not as foe?
The only answer in eulogy to be read,
Alas, those imprints never will I know.
For it was marked before, no chance to be unwrit,
So with this, the light on final chapter shall be lit.
Reaching Truth
For what we cannot understand,
A grappling net we cast,
Striving, human limitation binding,
Quickening to capture, it eludes us ever fast.
What mystery, then, alone to grasp we hasten?
What, at our center, do we confront that jests
“You know!” - but word we seek escapes?
To this I dare repost - it merely in us rests.
Impression, distinctly clear must form,
And, discerning this, a gem discovered be.
Then only, naked truth revealed,
Will common word be known to drape this mystery.
And so with mortal hands and minds,
An inner voice we capture, and we ourselves be bound.
At last, the same as all can we be named -
Our spiritual self would we have found.
Until that day, when cosmic leap shall humankind lay hold,
Understand we must that what we bear,
Binds us together, each and each -
A common core, a common truth, a common gift to share.
Subsistence
At the core of living matter,
Need for subsistence to survive.
Its power and mass press down on men and mice,
A weight to bear that lesser needs must one sacrifice.
But the need for love to receive and give,
Within the human breast is borne,
And is this not a loftier goal it’s said,
That any other need ought be sacrificed and shed?
Has not humankind, severely squeezed,
Before been forced a choice to make?
Between love and survival a battle fierce is waged,
Shrunken and surrendered - love lost, love caged.
A lesson therefore only then is learnt,
That love requited or regained, has no promise e’er been made.
So pain manifested uniquely in each is felt,
Hope the only common thread, altar before which all have knelt.
The Past
The past, inform the future always it will,
Myriad choices laid,
Select a one or stand we still,
A decision must be made.
To the wise are lessons seated,
To the joyful soul, hope the future hails,
To the skeptic, harbinger of dreaded times repeated,
To the sorrowful, gloom the decision impales.
Breast in turmoil, a bet that we must make,
Act now, or future moment deed.
No delay can past facts shake.
Be brave, for another time may hatred breed.
Where distrust festers, no heart is there to give.
Where angst shall settle, no peace can one retrieve,
Where worry finds a bed, in this resting place will it live.
Where memories reside, the darkest must we leave.
Waking Hours
Times when waking hours must stand silenced,
Hours to be protected from the fear,
With heady wine that drowns a cry,
In solitude, with cherished moments gone by.
Then when rebirth no answer for the loss,
Nor hope of ever being again,
A struggle to extract life from the stranglehold,
And from the dreams it sold.
Dreams molded by waking hours real,
Made gentler by the love they gave,
And stronger by depth of their abode,
Fruits of life lived from the seeds they sowed.
Hours now just scattered seconds prized,
Focused only on highlights buried,
With all the glory of their memory store,
Wanting to just thank the past, and never ask for more.
Words
What value words, if lost in volume
That millennia have heard or read and cannot recollect?
Not words to uncaring masses bringing songs of a lark,
But pearls of hope and wisdom that love may spark.
Words of inspiration, crescendo reaching,
Until meaning into heart and mind should delve,
Absorbed and acted on, leading to a love that’s earned,
And when love’s lost, such words strength returned.
Words that lift when hope seems hard to find,
Words of common theme when nurturing in an earlier time,
Words sent in sound or silence, the gifts that matter most,
Not treasure, not achievement, nor other of which one may boast.
Words gently whispered in lover’s ear,
And heard in manner as no other can,
Meaning clear, deep, warm and full in their reserve,
Words we gave each other that life of the ages do deserve.
But the ages come and go,
These sweet whispering bells delivered to the earth,
To surface flowers for new lovers, their affection to bestow,
And words, a question: if unheard or unread, how may I know?