Why weep ye? This flower was made
So that it could be picked and die;
The starlet blossom’s not afraid.
The same shall pass to you and I.
Death meets even its brethren buds
By bugs, pests, or inclement climes,
Like those who’ve cast their petal duds
Early, in season, or betimes—
Just like those that lay on the ground,
A pile of mush and rotten things,
And those withered where stems abound.
Don’t you know we’re all just playthings?
Sometimes I close the curtains drawn
To shade my irritated eyes
From twilight, noonday sun, and dawn,
And the joy that the light belies.
With my curtains and shutters closed,
I wash the windows of my soul;
I’d washed them not, were I exposed,
Lest hypocrites come to console.
Indeed, no one should see just how
Vulnerable I am washing
Them in the darkness and shadow
With my salty buckets sloshing.
Thus I defy optimism—
The light that would have me believe
That to not preach idealism
Would be quite absurd and naïve,
That should I block out its bright light
E’en temporarily, ‘twould be
Useless. It misconstrues my plight
Since its very brilliance shows me
The specks and smudges and smears that
Caused me to wash in the first place.
It’s time to draw the curtains back,
Since manhood can now show its face.
Pummelos, with their citric smell,
Make me live in memories past
When I was still a little child
With no hopes innocence would last,
Nor a hope Christmas would bring
The coveted toys of all the rest.
A pummelo was my present then,
And I considered myself blest.
My family gathered around me and
The well-adorned, emblazoned tree,
Whose twinkling lights are like the souls
Of those passing in and out of humanity.
I was hardened by poverty, death,
Friendlessness, and low self-esteem,
So any gifts beyond the pummelo
Would be a suspicious dream.
The surreal chanced as, awkwardly,
I accepted some stranger’s gift
Out of the box on the doorstep
Left in hopes our spirits to lift.
The whatnots animated us,
According to our childish nature,
But proved a bit unsettling to
My pride strong and mature.
How dare they think us poor?
They needn’t think; it was the truth.
How is it I ruined their efforts
With feelings wild and uncouth?
How is it the cherished present
Was one I’d resigned myself to,
While such trinkets as I’d wanted
Became meaningless anew?
I sat and slowly ate my pummelo,
And its tartness has stayed with me
And caused me to resent gifts given
For sympathy of my poverty.
The years have died like many men,
But, unlike men, will not come back,
But remind me when I had naught
There was nothing that I did lack.
I can see where your paw prints lay
As lazy as sleeping cattle;
You left them in the sand one day
After the rain’s recent battle.
By such deluges freshly strewn,
The sand was begging to be trod;
Its past impressions picayune
And temp’rary will have no laud.
You’re all I see in silica,
Joining a collection of tracks
In this woodland basilica
That droppings as well scarcely lacks.
Amid desperate survival,
I can just make out the faint signs,
Left long ere the land grew nival,
Of passers through my copse of pines.
By some means they have persevered
The erosive forces of time,
Perchance ’cause their impact endeared
Them, or their acts were much maligned.
Regardless, they’re but faint mem’ries,
Unlike the lunar footprints found
That will last through eternities,
Long after I cease to be ’round.
I travel alone winding trails
That I’m certain I’ve trod before,
But mem’ry no longer avails.
The past’s paths are myths, legends, lore,
And stories I would fain believe
Were I not wary of the snare;
For confusion and fact do cleave
Like fresh lovers watched unaware.
Now, I know not what I should trust,
Since man’s mortal, and love is frail.
But is it wrong to love a lie
When real history’d be a hell?
I can see how I would have crossed
Through the leaves and over the ridge
To see the imagined sights lost
By entering the covered bridge.
I see myself wrapped up in bliss,
Her hair and dress flowing, twirling,
And ‘neath the ridge we wait and kiss,
Hidden to the world that’s whirling.
We separate. I’ll come again
To see her, my heart’s decided.
Why lose her to another man?
In deception, I’ll be prided.
Look how I am covering up
The evidence of my coming.
Surely that must be why I feel
So compelled to break out running,
Certain as a groundhog’s senses
That spring is shortly due to be.
I run to her, but find fences.
Sorrow streams alluvially.
Once more to the path I return,
Quite uncertain what is real.
Why can fantasy make me burn,
Confounding the ways that I feel?
Why can’t life be hon’rable as
Fleeting dreams prematurely dead?
It fails, despite the time it has,
So I’ll prefer to dream instead.
I can make up my destinies,
No matter what I’ve been slated;
When reality mutinies,
I can muse, like it’s been fated.
For only safe within my dreams
Can I ever be satisfied,
For what is man? Truly, it seems,
Misery till the day he’s died.
The success of my oblivion
I shall never surpass,
Should I scribe an epic
For each lad and lass.
Oblivion is my acme,
Zenith, and bounteous yield.
In it the greatness of my
Characters was developed and revealed.
Compared to it all else
Lies as a barrenly fallow field.
Nothing else could achieve
Oblivion’s universality;
Everyone can attribute
It to me.
Should even a few recognize
Other works my pen doth decree,
Oblivion’s numbers grow daily
As the flora in the lee.
Empowered with my Venetian sight,
I longingly peer through blinds
Into a rustic courtyard, emptiness, where
My vision has spilled, is present in many kinds.
The slate sky suspended distantly away
Has abandoned its loving rains.
Lonely, it has become sorrowfully blue;
The colour of one who complains.
Solemn oaks and willows have lost
The intimate company of wind,
Who must journey wherever Solaris’s
Heated passions fickly send.
No living being with a soul
Takes refuge in the exposure
And have instead forsaken the courtyard
For the sheltered brick enclosure
That stands formidably and,
As a turtle, low to the ground.
The base foundation has been painted
By the deluge’s silt that has browned.
Lo, movement stirs beneath the catwalk
Roofed with one rippled tin segment undone.
Like wildfire over thick humus, they
Blaze a rampant course as they run
From the battered black double doors
To the innards of the cafeteria’s walls.
One of these few streaking teens
Stumbles, slips, and slickly falls.
As if arisen from the dead,
The ravenous youth moistly stands
And angrily chases those who’ve fled
Madly for nomadic sustenance.
With his jeaned departure all is still,
And fallen oak leaves are left alone
In plastered heaps of rusty brown
Where by wind and rain they’ve been blown.
But the solitude interwoven departs
With the stampede of unaware pupils
Boisterously speaking, without hearts,
Cold words and jokes and lack of thought.
The lips do move, as do their legs,
But neither makes audible sound.
The promise of edible confetti leads
Them targetedly across the ground.
Despairing as they all pass by
Without a word or acknowledgment,
I feel battered by ostracism.
Of what do I need repent?
A peculiarly unfitting sight has caused
Me from my thoughts to be awoke.
This herd has a straggler;
She’s halted near an weathered oak.
The wind, who has newly returned
At this time of mortal repast,
Speaks mildly to his leaféd cronies—
Presumably about adventures passed.
The interaction of conversation
Stirs the residential dew of the leaves
Which gravely by gravity mattes
The red covering of where she conceives.
As if she can feel mine eyes,
Glazed from staring observations,
Upon me has she fixed
A glance of considering consternation.
Alone, I slink back to my comrades
Treading the boards where all can see
The illusions I represent while still
Being unable to perceive me.
Why is it we struggle for
Fame and immortality?
For, in the end, all will be
Forgotten, lamentably.
Some carve one’s name to etch out
A permanence that will give
The world and generations a
Reminder that once one did live.
But why fret over a lasting name
When everything will be destroyed?
Oblivion at the world’s destruction
Can neither Shakespeare or Plato avoid.
Perhaps to spite this, we humans
Attempt to try to have fame?
But renown upon this earth
Is meaningless and a shame.
When ev’rything must be forgotten in
Order for the next generations to
Have a feeling of desolation and
Accomplishment, just as with me and you.
Thus, thoughts are meaningless, since none
Are original, but have been
Shared by generations who have
Died, as we all will in the end.
The only controllable things
Are our eked out lives, after all,
Since we cannot control how we will be
Remembered, if, indeed, we are at all.
It would be well to make the most
Of this power and cultivate
Friends, acquaintances, and
Envy, greed, love, and hate.
But be sure to set things aright when
At the end of associations,
For it’s been said a dying man
May at the end take salvation
In the last hour, no matter the
Actions. There is hope until it’s gone
With one and the fare-thee-wells
That will render one alone.
If one should ever wish to live, then
Memory is such a crucial key.
Like the Ghost of King Hamlet,
One’s actions must cry, “Remember me!”
How can one be assured
A life in recollections?
I say it’s not best done
Through wealth and perfections,
For people recall most vividly
Births, funerals, and separations
And forget the bulk of life’s
Events’ conglomeration.
And because we’ll ne’ermore be as
We all are here at this right now,
We should honour and make the most of
The occasion before saying, “Ciao.”
Wish you all luck and happiness
And truly hope you will have found
That, though together we may have grown
For a time, it’s the goodbyes that count.
Roses on a thorny stem
Living in beauty and splendor
Unfolded to perfume the world.
They are called to arms
To fight a futile war
That shall end them
Time is an unfair opponent
With all of the advantages
And all the time in the world to fight
The roses wither and blacken
Lose their beauty to an unkind age
The waning minion of time
Cut from the stem
They enjoy a decomposing rot
Joy they wouldn’t have had, had they fought not
The roses still blossom
Blossom to wither and die
Fighting the same war as you and I
They grow up in adversity, always hated.
Others are not happy until their lives have dissipated.
But what makes them less special than a rose?
Marry, they’re much nicer, sans the thorns it grows.
Picked and sprayed and from soil freed
Lives the fittest of Nature’s breed,
The outcast, the eyesore, the weed.
Midnight Musings from Melancholy Muses 