Amazing

This poem was born out of a sense of great personal frustration and can be described as a polemic, in part against self and in part against society. I tried to lace this piece with different layers of meaning and invite the reader to realize them on his/her own. I will however note the use of mirthful acquiescence and  existential appreciation to conclude the piece.

Isn’t it amazing how

I just want to love; and just tend to hate

My blood I cherish; yours I struggle not to denigrate

Love and hate: interesting things

Multiplicity pulling at my heartstrings

Hate comes easy, but stays a weight

Love is a task, but will liberate

Mind over matter; matter over mind

Each its own to be regarded in kind

I’m perceived as a pest while I hope for the best

Your best, my best: are they not the same quest

We are all the one; the one is all

My blood for your blood; are we even now

To exhaust people is easy; to exhaust peoples is hard

With no end in sight we woefully keep guard

And isn’t it amazing how

We all look for guidance: right and wrong

The will to move; and the yet passionless throng

And its no wonder then that religion should emerge

Vision to confusion; knowledge to purge

Ode to the sheep: shepherdship abound

His flock should be directed; His flock should be found

So many issues; so many eyes

One truth lives; another dies

Isn’t is amazing how

Victims and victimizers; we are all the two

What then can be said for whom is who

Right and wrong; elude me still

Honest to goodness, clarity spells delusion mill

Guidance we seek and guidance delivered

Culture’s replaced belief and belief is mirrored

The time has come for beliefs to be meant

The sacred skeptic has given way to the contemptuous complacent

Cowardice is everywhere and dishonesty too

Right should be sought; not flirted with in cue

The sheep and the shepherd make up the flock

The flock beyond the sheep and the shepherd the clock

Convention meets existential detention

Vice and virtue: continued reinvention

And isn’t it amazing how

Individualism has been made mantric

While universalism is uniquely unpatriotic

The guise of aggression is ambition

And self-absorption – capitalistic rendition

Passion is uncouth

And sensitivity – self-inflicted ruth

Innocence is ignorance

And jading - experience

Isn’t it amazing how

Principles are fundamental and fundamentals extreme

We hold ourselves in too great esteem

Living is sleeping; sleeping to dream

Religion fleets where the proud meet

And people speak and people do

But seldom is there convergence of the two

One mind; one man; one world too

Disharmony; dissent through and through

We fear we are hollow so we stuff away

This stuff is unreal; this stuff won’t stay

Mother culture beguiles the endless race

A whole world spinning in place

Civilization contrived to make nothing something

Its unbridled conquest reveals nothing of something

And isn’t it amazing how

Unconscious drones make society’s daughters

What’s so wrong with stagnant waters

Calm and reflection to navigate direction

Perchance matter and mind’s intersection

No value of time, no sense of import

Just physical pander, transient exhort

Symptoms of The Persistence of Memory

Our attempted remedy – distractive ornery

And isn’t it amazing how

Systems, structures, and codes actual

As if nature were sensible and sense natural

Six million souls; six billion souls

Nobody wants to know; nobody knows

Rather die in Zion than live in the matrix

Let us come to grips, there is no quick fix

Day in day out, puppets employed

Existential contact we zealously avoid

No man is an island but we all build moats

Ships passing in the night; whatever emotes

Purpose now melts away

Who’s to say what’s to say

G-d begets man and man begets god

Truth be told, life is odd

But it’s amazing how