Ours to Choose
Dragon’s Egg ~ Philip Brent Harris
~~~~~
What is it follows?
Can it be found?
Follows you around,
Sometimes in front,
Sometimes behind.
Opens doors,
Slams doors
In your face.
Sneaks in,
Cheek by jowl,
Cuts no slack,
A burdened back.
Dogs your steps,
Manacles
Your joints,
Points of pain,
Reminders
Of reminders past.
Needles and pins
Stuck in a map
Of self.
Physical, mental,
Emotional self,
Psychic
Yet mundane.
Into darkness,
Into light,
Never into
Or out of sight.
Childhood wounds
Stab your feet.
Your arms, unarmed,
Battles forgotten,
Demons unacknowledged.
Education, incomplete,
Drops
A noose,
Encircles
Your neck.
Your life
Not growing,
Tighter yet,
Becoming so,
Traps, hold you,
Limit movement,
Freedom.
Can you go,
Do you know?
Nod for yes,
Shake for no.
Con or confidence
Trickles through,
Through your thoughts,
Swiss-cheese brains
Deluge drains.
Rigor of mind
Leaves you behind.
Beware,
Do you dare
Be here,
Choose choice,
Run the race.
Run away,
Faster, faster.
Court triumph,
Drink disaster.
First chance,
Last dance?
Will you,
Won’t you?
Can you tell
Your tell,
What you sell?
Just, oh well/
Have you ever
Thought
You might?
Clever now,
Day and night,
A dull knife,
A blunted tool,
A born fool.
Would it?
Maybe so.
Find it,
Hide it,
Don’t let go.
Can you show,
Do you know?
Shake for yes,
Nod for no.
While walking,
Talking,
Driving where?
Killing time,
Rain or shine,
Sleet, snow.
Whether weather,
Or whatever.
Dreaming’s fine,
Toe the line.
Nowhere to hide,
You decide.
Draw a card,
Draw a picture,
A conclusion.
Cut for luck.
A fiction,
A confusion,
Or only
An illusion?
Meaning sought
Behind the veil,
Beyond the vale,
Last farewell,
Who can tell?
Each story
Lost, forgotten,
Defeated, destroyed,
Sings fame, glory,
Diverse, disparate.
Desperate,
Unique, oblique,
Star-crossed,
Crosshatched,
Dispatched,
Each part,
Part and parcel.
Win or fail,
When finally pale.
None may know.
Your urgent tale.
Each knot,
Each stitch,.
Every thread
Alive, dead.
Forms pattern.
Hidden, tangled,
Cloth of gold,
Always, everywhere told.
Love and sorrow,
Joy and pain,
Each tomorrow
A new today.
Begin again.
Tapestry woven
Each moment
On time’s loom.
We each
And all choose
Glory, doom,
Which new patterns
Will find room.
Who or what, where?
Centered,
Glowing brightly,
Assumed, subsumed,
Consumed
By darkness.
Win or fail,
When finally pale,
All may know
Your tiny tale.
Heat, light,
Explode, escape,
Compression,
Confinement.
A grand confession.
Not guilt but being,
Proclaimed,
Scattered, shattered
Starry jewels.
Embedded
In chill obsidian,
No meridian.
Fiery heat, alive.
Sub-zero chill alive.
Play
Opposites.
Above us,
Within us,
In our lives.
No one survives,
Dead or alive.
No energy,
No matter.
What we know,
How we strive,
All paths,
Same maths.
Ultimate equation,
Persuasion,
Entropy increases,
Combustion decreases,
Life grows,
Life ceases.
Ours to choose.
Win or lose,
All battles one,
All battles lost,
All battles won,
Only one.
Final payment,
Despite the cost.
Where we start,
We do depart,
On the stage
Where we embark.
~~~~~
Peace is Purpose, Nonviolence is Strength, Diversity is Unity, Empathy is Empowerment
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