Tag Archives: power

There Is No Mundane

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The clock will stop that human hands must wind;
its mechanized contrivances will fail,
and in those precious seconds between time
the boundary between the worlds is frail.

On one side, secret lands where shadows pale;
and on the other, bright and vibrant dreams
where words escape like mist, and leave no trail.
In neither place a thing is what it seems.

The universe is woven from both streams;
it winds its way through both darkness and light.
The truth swims in its currents as it gleams,
where foolish souls will try to grasp it tight.

To value just the gem you hold, is tragic;
To see them all and let them be is magic.

03 DEC 2003

for LJ user novapsyche

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The Status Quo

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I hate a Roman named Status Quo!,
He said to me. Fill your eyes with wonder,
He said, live as if you’d drop dead
In ten seconds. See the world.
It’s more fantastic than any dream
Made or paid for in a factory.
Ask no questions,
Ask for no security,
There never was such an animal.
And if there was,
It would be related to the great sloth
Which hangs upside down in a tree
All day every day, sleeping its life away.
He said, shake the tree
and bring the great sloth down.
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

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Fahrenheit 451

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Sitting here talking ’bout the government,
divvying up all the blame:
easy to say it’s the fault of the president
when you see them all the same.

I’ve a got a finger to point and complain.
Sometimes, my fist shakes in anger;
seems like that’s such a familiar refrain.
It keeps us at odds and such strangers.

Desperate times call for difficult measures:
keeping your balance on a tight wire.
Hard to stay dry in such inclement weather;
better stand close to the fire.

Sitting here watching the things on the news,
wondering at such insanity.
Easy to think your superior views
protect you, by stroking your vanity.

I’ve got a notion the world needs to change.
Sometimes, when I look in the mirror,
seems that the eyes that look back are so strange;
they don’t help me see any clearer.

Desperate times call for desperate measures;
It’s hard to stay clean of the mire.
Try to make sure you don’t lose what you treasure
standing too close to the fire.

I think that I know that I see what there is to do.
Funny, but sometimes I think I know better than you.
There are no answers without a hard question or two;
I think that I know but I know I haven’t a clue.

Desperate times call for difficult measures:
weighing the odds and doing what’s required.
Hard to stay cool when madmen are untethered
and you’re standing too close to the fire.

05 SEP 2003

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This is the Way

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This is the way the world is:

Drunk, strung out on the euphoric smack
Of its own illusions of history
Sucking down the bitter pills
Like tapioca pearls stuck in the bottom of bubble tea
Strained through flavored watered-down sugar
Dressed in an exquisite facade
Crumbling at the edges like an old whore at the Parthenon
Waiting for another savior to crucify
Fighting the signs of age
Its revolutions caked like rejuvenating facial cream
Or dried semen on a dried and cracking diaphragm
Pierced and tattooed with disappearing ink
The sickly sour smell of henna hanging like a green cloud
From its clogged and distended pores
Drinking from a specimen cup its nasty medicine
While saying it loves the taste, but wishing it were less filling
Relishing the savor of bile and old phlegm
Dead and gone to seed to fuel a new regime
Of diet fads and infomercials promising improved performance
Its kindling clear-cut and fed to friendly fires
Thinking it is not in free fall
Just because the cliff from which it jumped is so high
The bottom is not yet in sight
Raw and bruised, its shoulders red and swollen to the touch
From refusing to share the authority of being
Among its myriad of creations

This is the way the world is:

Mouse and trap entwined as one mass of writhing matter
Lost because it thinks it drew the map.

21 AUG 2003

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The Parable of the Mustard Seed

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PONTIUS:
“Against you, I have great legions arrayed.
Your brothers even call out for your death;
yet you smile and do not waste your breath
with pleading, or seem in the least dismayed.

I hold the power to end your short life
Here in my hands, yet you refuse to speak
a word of self-defense and like a freak
just stand there, stretched neck poised against the knife!

What is this strength of spirit you possess
that gives you peace in this, your time of need?
You are just flesh and bone, you bruise and bleed.
Do I not speak the truth? I must confess

I do not understand your plan, or stance —
please, if you wish to live, this is your chance.”

YESHUA:
“Of power and might what is it you know?
Can you bring a new life into the world
while grasping at truth, your hands tightly curled
into a fist? That kind of strength won’t grow,

but fades and withers with time. As the wind
comes down across the desert and will eat
both solid iron and soft flesh, it defeats
and crushes greater foes. Look, you will find

there is one source of strength here on this earth.
It fuels all things and does not subdivide;
how it is finds use or form is not decided
by you or I, who cannot judge its worth

nor guess from what dark place it manifests,
despite our measurements or endless tests.

The whole we see and know is our small part;
outside that range lie strange and useless powers.
What good to men the grace that blooms in flowers,
or the great force that keeps the stars apart?

What you believe is there within your reach
is shared with every other thing that lives;
and what allows your breath, may also give
its form to each grain of sand on the beach.

And like that speck of dust tossed in the sea
is the small portion of strength in our flock,
yet it may a move a mass of solid rock,
once you become the rock, quite easily.

For more than this I do not ask, or need.
Can such a tree grow from your mustard seed?

16 AUG 2003

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Violence

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True power isn’t intimidation
nor does it manifest itself by fear;
lashing out doesn’t help a situation,
nor make a solution any more clear.

Might has never really made a cause right,
only forced gentler souls to be slaves
and pushed trust and reason far out of sight.
It is no great thing, yet we name brutes brave

who resist tender feelings and can strike
without mercy or any sense of shame.
If they can dominate, hold all the cards,

then we cower as they take what they like,
never holding our own culture to blame
while we build more prisons and new graveyards.

08 MAR 2003

for LJ user nutmeggie

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Evil

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Evil, if it is, lives behind the walls
in a murky shadow world of self-doubt
(who, after all, cannot truthfully make
at least a good guess about what is right?)

and waits for those who ask ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
but do not pause too long for the response,
acting without thinking, without caring
about the balance of the world they share,

without acknowledging the source power
that fuels all things – the neutral force of life
feeding both light, and the pale specter that
asks ‘what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’

The most correct answer of course is none,
it exists and breeds mostly in their minds.

14 MAR 2003

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