Gnomic Verses

Those who don’t sit at the top of an empty bus,

Are already thinking about getting off.

Who knows how much in the world is world and how much art?

How much was given to us, and how much we brought with us?

Does man pick a pick-axe readily?

No, he is content with conserving an old work.

But the colours are not so bright

And the paint has cracked in places.

Who will dribble on a clean canvas

And breathe new fumes that intoxicate with new dreams?

We will hate his courage and call him mad,

But when this new painting has dried

Will we call it good and hang it on our walls?

Those eyes, that nose, that ear in the mirror,

I see them as if I was another.

The mirror reflects what I want it to,

But what it doesn’t see I can not change.

Even if I stare into the mirror every day,

I never know what I will find in it tomorrow.

Pride comes in bricks and build walls,

To keep out those things that want us naked in the pig sty.

But I am tired of this fortress:

The thick walls trap the cold

and the quiet within is dull.

I’d like to roll in the warm mud for a while.

Will you join me?

Men think they flatter when they praise a woman for her beauty,

But a woman knows beauty is the one thing she will not have the next morning.

The ugly things are easier to believe in than the beautiful,

for who would pretend to be ugly?

I’d rather your spite than your love,

At least I can believe in your spite.

It hurts to love,

I wish I could wish not to.

He says he loves me because I’m funny,

Pretty, intelligent, and sad.

And his love falls on me like great boulders.

If I love him my wings crack!

They crack so I can be funny, pretty, intelligent

And sad - Forever.

If I love him the way I love,

Not like boulders – how terrible!

Like no-prescription glasses:

Loving in him vision.

Loving his open eyes.

Loving the miracle of his turning neck.

If I love him like this, will I lose myself?

My love too needs to learn to fly.

My love needs to grow a neck.

So it can fly along with him,

Or not.

So that every second of love is a decision.

Soaring and flirting among the clouds,

Will love not be a finer yet heavier thing,

Than that love we can dump in one moment?

Family – there’s a topic worth studying!

For it is the most unnatural of all teams

And yet the one that sticks together the longest.

: 13 Jan 2008 22:19 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem