What is it that I do?
What purpose do I serve by
extracting words from my mind and
laying them,
sometimes intentionally, sometimes carelessly,
in notebook after book for my own therapy?
A house exists, surgery leaves a healing scar,
but do I matter when I dedicate every day of my life
to writing my ideas for a very small few to read?
These are questions I ask myself hourly
as I grapple with choosing passion over societal duty
because the irony, the hypocrisy,
is that I was born into a nation which insists on
following the dream;
Only, as I get older
I realize the dream was never supposed to be mine.
So, when my ambition was molded as a young wanderlust,
although I allowed myself to be whipped into line,
deep inside,
I never understood why I was not supposed to become an individual.
When not gnawing through my mind,
I sit in the corners of my world
desperately searching through the hearts of others;
the who what why and hows of the thousands of others
born also into this confusion of intended purpose.
Which eventually leads me to think,
Could it be I am not alone in this convoluted quagmire of rationale?
Frozen in thought,
I let these last ink blots sleep for a bit…
Roots begin growing from this ponderance,
begin to take hold
begin to sprout
more words begin to breathe out
creating oxygen for inspiration
And when I finally snap out of this heavy haze
I find a statement where there once only were inquiries…
I finally am what I dream
I am not the outcast,
I am the alchemist.
I spin spiritual silk for a higher purpose than society;
That although the bourgeois
propel the dream of the nation,
the purpose of us rare few, of us poets,
is to conjure from life’s metallic shackles
a literary elixir which empowers you
the reader
to not only dream of
but to be
all that is impossible…
af
(written with pen on paper)
This has emerged as one of my favorites. Anyone who has been to one of my readings lately heard this one…