La Primavera I’ve seen the world end more times than I can count as I sit here watching the dripping sun melt into the bay I wonder what might be said of us many millennia hence & millennia upon millennia upon millennia upon millennia when the sun engulfs the earth in a wave of fire & after when every drop of starlight dries not with a bang but whispering what I wonder will be left of us our art our science our lies & loves our humanity somewhere drifting through space on a golden record a newborn baby crying into the emptiness of light
Tag: Life Poems
O Death, where is thy Pyrrhic victory?
O Death, where is thy cursèd venom sting?
Alas, from sullied tank of algae pine
Dost thou into latrine Charybdis gyre —
Like Death did I with net as scythe reap thou
Sans pomp nor circumstance nor fun’ral shroud;
Alone swam’st thou, forsaken and deprived
As Sisyphus condemned to search for friends;
Alack!
Thy rock the mountain ne’re shall overcome,
Alack!
For thou art Solamente — fish reborn
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
“Soon all this will be no more, and all shall be as it should.”
“Brother, I don’t understand. You should rest your voice.”
“I will not rest—not now, not ever,” I said through convulsive wheezing.
“Oh, Emmanuel. Why do you always have to be so difficult? Why do you always have to be so perfect?”
“Elon, I’m not perfect—I’m human just as you are.”
“Yeah? Well, it doesn’t seem like that,” said Elon, standing up from his chair beside my bed. “You’ve always been so kind, and life has always been clear for you. Look at me—I’m a mess. A stinking mess. Years spent as an accountant, working through the ranks, trying to do well to eventually become CFO—and then it all falls apart. That sonofabitch Judas. He’s always, always impressing everybody with his charm and handsomeness. But he doesn’t fool me for a minute. I know he’s a liar and a cheat! I just couldn’t take his awful presence any longer—I swear he makes my skin crawl. He kept calling me weak and cowardly—so I silenced him with my fists.”
“Now, now,” I said through a cough, “that doesn’t make you bad. But neither do his actions justify your response. Remember, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
We cry, we children of the blessèd light,
Against our deeds most reeking in the dark—
For Faith’s kind roots reach deep and do unite.
Our children we expose to future plight
While oft we miss the calling of the lark
We cry, we children of the blessèd light.
A holy hush of Faith within full sight
That scatters seeds all o’er our gardens marked
For Faith’s kind roots reach deep and do unite.
We are good soil, most fertile if we might
Unite behind our prophet Thunberg, hark!
We cry, we children of the blessèd light.
Affected not are we by cold twilight;
We do not fear to stand against the dark
For Faith’s kind roots reach deep and do unite.
So, will you water seed with Faith’s sunlight? —
Diluvian escape upon an ark.
We cry, we children of the blessèd light,
For Faith’s kind roots reach deep and do unite.
The sky is eternal dark—
Black as Erebus
An abyss of nothingness
Devoid of the faintest glimmer of stars
The ground is eternal light—
Bright as Apollo
An abyss of nothingness
Devoid of any presentiment of life
Only dust, dust, dust
And millions of craters
On the bleak surface
Of the silvery moon
Only dust, dust, dust
And a tranquil sea
On the bleak surface
Of the silvery moon
Only dust, dust, dust
And hollow hills
On the bleak surface
Of the silvery moon
But on the edge of the horizon—
A pale, blue sphere
Peaks above vapid flats
And desolate sky
A stranger to the darkness
It dances delicately
Upon the lunar shore
And sparkles in a glorious jubilee
Life—breathing, beating, bleeding
Loving, lasting, loathing
Flowering, fasting, fighting
Struggling, smiling, surviving
Life—in all its infinite capacity
For good and evil
Creation and destruction—
Thriving on planet Earth
A glinting sapphire
Alone and incongruous
Writhing in the great emptiness
And stillness
A jewel that harbors all life—
Great and small
Complex and simplistic
Regardless of any artificial preconditions
Where everything is connected—
The wind, rain, and sea
All work in harmony
Inside Earth’s glass sphere
All eight billion humans—
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist
American, Venezuelan, Chinese, Zimbabwean
Wealthy, impoverished, educated, illiterate
All eight billion humans
Live, loathe, love, and laugh
While cradled by the tiny azure moonstone
Drifting through nothingness
Our differences are hollow and trifling—
Race, religion, and politics are but
A superficial and inconsequential
Arbitrary divide
For we are all one:
United in our struggles
United in our griefs
United in our passions
For we are all one:
One expression of life
One human conscious
One beating soul of humanity
For we are all one:
Dust, dust, dust
From dust we came
And to dust we shall return.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light.
Plato, The Allegory of the cave
I don’t remember when I hatched, nor do I remember who my parents were. The earliest thing I can remember is swimming around my rock in a large tank with hundreds of other goldfish. I remember seeing “!elas no” on a big green sticker adhered to the glass wall of our tank.
Life was good. All I had to do was swim around all day, and every evening the lights would dim and a great giant five-fingered tan being would descend from the heavens and, using its magical powers, would open the sky to sprinkle nourishing flakes of hazel-colored food. All the while I would swim around my rock, explore and hide amongst its crevices, and escape the bustle of the open water.
But everything changed one fateful day. I remember being physically jolted by a harsh, rhythmic sound coming from the front wall. As I swam over to investigate, I noticed that the normally blurred images outside the glass were more distinct, and I saw a strange creature: it had a face like an oval, with a mouth full of smooth, rectangular teeth; it had red lips, wide brown eyes, and red hair. Every five seconds or so it would smash its fingers against the glass. It felt like it was pointing…pointing at me.
So life, continuing its unending struggle, moves on, if perhaps futilely, in search of a new home, a new sanctuary, a new paradise.
Oscar Scholin, 2019
Reaching for fresh cerulean sky, mountains of fire climb slowly from the cool Pacific depths. The gods’ fiery wrath gradually calms, and the sea breathes a sigh of relief….Lapped by the gently sculpting waves and crushed by the forcefully pounding breakers, the harsh, jagged edges of the rock beaches erode into pure black sand, and the ancient skeletal remains of living organisms coalesce to form pure white sand. Eventually, small dots of green lichen colonize the salt-crusted volcanic rocks, and wild grasses begin to grow on the barren black landscape. Strikingly beautiful sunset-colored hibiscus, with rings of white surrounded by hues of amber, scarlet, and faint pink, bloom as if kissed by the morning sun and watered with the drops of silver moonlight. Sweet fruit trees blossom, as if by the magic of some Arab genie, from the grass-covered rocks and imbue a darker hue of green to the newly formed islands….
Oh Janie,
I see your mischievous green eyes
Peering out the window.
I see you lounging on my backpack
And grooming yourself on last night’s homework
All day long.
I see you biting the flowers
And curling up in the sink,
Begging for more food to eat.
I see you shredding my papers
And leaping down the stairs
Like a hurricane.
When I arrive home from school
You run to the door to greet me.
You are my companion and friend
When no one is home.
I hear you cry out in the night
And I answer:
Janie!
A low rumbling sound
Like thunder
Awakens the conscience
In the distance
The faint image of birds in echelon
Enters the dreamscape
And within moments
Soaring angels appear
While earth trembles with mounting intensity
Gracefully gliding
Over verdant hills
And crop-covered valleys
They streak across
A canvas of cerulean sky
Then plunge toward earth
…a flash of lightning
…a trail of smoke
…an explosion of sound
The turbo-charged engines
Of America’s Blue Angel fighter jets
Thrust forward through space
Their polished metal glints in sunlight
As golden wingtips streak the sky
With ribbons of vapor white afterthought
In one final pass
The angels thrust toward heaven
Then vanish beyond consciousness
Leaving in the mind
The chest-heaving, heart-pounding
Emptiness of contemplation
Wherein the Navy hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”
Gives a soundtrack to dreams
And contrails of “PRIDE”
Hover like a miracle
On the firmament
Of the soul
A mighty apple tree stands sentinel
Beneath lonely mountains
And empty sky
Its roots stretch
Deep, deep, deep
Into hearty earth
Its trunk grows
Up, up, up
Reaching for sky
Its branches blossom
Open, open, open
Attracting new life
Its blooming buds become apples
Ripe, ripe, ripe
Bobbing in gentle wind
Its red apples fall
Down, down, down
Carrying seeds for the future
Its branches shrivel
Closed, closed, closed
Shivering in cold air
Then warm light returns
The tree’s branches blossom
And its trunk adds a ring.