Monday 21 November 2016

Caged


Caged

A prison
Not of my own making
But masquerading
as mine
It taunts me
An illusion
So real in appearance
So fearsome
So forbidding
Leaves me forlorn
and weeping
Alone
Unable to express
To share
my burden of despair
Sighs and tears
do me no good
Escape seems impossible
The universe, it mocks me
For my desires
      my dreams
I am a denizen
of a world I want no part of
Debarred
from my Ideal
Will freedom ever be mine?


Sunday 13 November 2016

Liberation

Not the greatest poetry perhaps, but straight from the heart:

Liberation

Free spirit
Bohemian
You cannot be confined
You must not be
Why then do you try
To cast yourself in a mold
So utterly foreign
To your deepest nature?
You will never be
One of them
You will never own
The same stripes.
One cannot change
One's very soul.
You were born to be free
To speak with the sun and the moon and the stars
Step lightly in the river
Converse with the wind
Pontificate with fire
Rest with the earth
To be at ease entirely
With the foliage that reaches for the sky
And the green folks that reside within.
To hear the bugle call
Of another universe
Entirely of your own making
And yet already alive
Your sirens, my dear, they will not be ignored.
Your muses, too many to be numbered,
Will not be quieted.
The itch in your fingers, in your bones,
Will not be denied.
How much longer will you run?
How much further?
Where will you escape to?
A forsaken place where poetry holds no meaning?
Where prose is so prosaic as to be utterly functional?
Where art is a by-the-by, only seldom indulged in to aimlessly pass the hours?
Will you thus wrong your body and soul?
Can you not see how blessed one is who can see beyond the mortal, the physical, the human?
Foolish, blind soul, return to your native hearth.
Accept thy name so presciently bestowed
And refuse to cave to dreary familiarity
                                      safe practicality
                                    pragmatic reality
                                       lacklustre duty
For you have a duty to yourself, bright being,
To not let the light die from your heart.
To keep alive the poetry that resides there
Despite your best attempts to squash it.
And to nurture the music, ever-present
As a note, a melody, an instrument, a song.
Paint those vistas only you can see.
You, my dear, do wrong yourself when you suggest
That such gifts are less bountiful
Than the worldly knowledge and political acumen you seek.
In seeking to know human pain and love and joy
You, my dear, perform one of the highest functions available to a human being.
Proudly deploy all that has been given to you
For there is only one of you
And one day the world shall hear
Of the unbearable sweetness that plagues you.