After fighting long
To achieve a faithful goal,
Now’s the time to surrender.
The obstacles created,
Strewn upon the path,
Will virtually assure
That none will be triumphant.
Month: January 2015
Joy Becomes Sorrow
Oh! Bright and joyous Morning!
Aroma of a fine French Roast…
But wait, the coffee maker’s broken
So what could be
This scent I’m smelling?
Dogs are frantic for their walking
And so I open up the door
What once was pleasant
Is now most noxious
Some residue of Skunky war!
Juggling Dynamite on The Carousel
In Chess it’s called a “Zugzwang”,
You injure yourself
Whatever you do!
This, it seems, sums my career.
These three legs of
An unstable stool.
“You really have a paperwork problem.”
So I do my paperwork,
And client contact drops.
“You’re not billing enough.”
So I see my clients more
And paperwork falls behind.
“We fear the auditors are due.”
So I stay late to do it all
But health and homestead
harmony suffers.
“You must attend to your self-care”.
Round and round and round she goes;
Where she stops, nobody knows!
No Last Time
This is just about the clearest and most honest description of the pain of depression I have ever read.
There’s never going to be a last time.
There is no cure.
There is only the finite space
Of not-so-bad
Of kind of okay
The discrete moments of joy.
And they’re so hard to remember
Especially when the sadness
Is so overwhelming,
When the melancholy floats to the surface
Like poisonous cream,
When I’m already so tired
And the reality is that the best
I can hope for is respite
Rather than true relief.
It’s like having a terminal illness
That never terminates,
And there’s no palliative care,
No hospice,
And so often, no real understanding,
Just empty platitudes.
Always Remember
Siblings will squabble.
Proximity’s artifact.
Archaic habits.
Explicit reminders of
Interwoven lives
And implicit reminders
Of interconnected hearts.
Sighing Softly
Sybillant singing
Soothing savaged senses
Summoning slumber
Summoning St. Jude
None heed my bugle call to muster;
There is no energy around.
My motive force is lacking luster;
Can’t get my feet up off the ground.
There is no bellow to my bluster;
Just hollow notes of trumpet sound.
I can’t escape the coming ouster;
No way to slip the baying hounds.
The rising tide has surged right by me;
Leaving me to flounder in the splash.
From it’s ebbing tow, I’ll not flee;
My hopes, upon the rocks, they dash.
My dreams are dragged into the deep,
Among their sodden mass, I sleep.
Fighting off the Chill
Oh my dear Shih-Tzu,
You could be my neck warmer
On this frigid morn!
I made to him this offer
Not expecting much.
He, respectfully, declines,
With fervent facial lavage.
Homing Instinct
People speak of “home”
As a longed for destination
And they speak of “home”
As a place they wish to be,
But when some say “home”
It is with hesitation,
Because, of them, “home”
Is a pain they long to flee.
Once, for me a “home”
Was just imagination
Until you came “home”
And built for me a home
That we never wish to leave.
Happy Hystrix
To whom might I be referring
If I were heard to opine:
“Working with her is like dancing…
…the Tango… …with a porcupine.”?
Fighting Fate
If the deck is surely stacked
Against the common man
And Ragnarök approaches,
When even gods will fall,
Does it truly serve
the prudent, cautious soul,
To plan so carefully
Just to suffer in the chaos?
Or is it simply better to
cast wide both weary arms,
Embrace the rising tide,
And hasten over Bifröst
Into Asgård’s bosom?
In the end, I full expect to share the fate of Odin,
And find myself a feast for crows upon the boughs of Yggdrasil.
The Nature of Gifts
Blessings and curses,
Often two sides of one coin,
Inseparable
And indistinguishable
One from another.
Depending on perspective,
They may, in fact, be the same.
Meet Two Men
In a village, there once lived a man named Humble. Every day he got up and went about using his many skills to help the people of his village. The people were very grateful but they could not understand why he blushed and hung his head when they thanked him for the help. At the end of the day, he went home tired but pleased that he was able to be of some small service to his friends.
In that same village, there lived another man whose name was Pride. He also got up in the morning and went out into the village and helped everyone he met. Although there were many people in the village, he never seemed to find very many people to help. Also, the people he did help never seemed to be appropriately grateful for all that he did for them. At the end of the day, he went home angry and frustrated.
Inner Weather
Frigid falling snow
And gusting, biting, zephyrs
Warm this old kid’s heart.
Aroil in Pain 