Gilt not guilt

Failure is all the rage

these days.

I have been practicing, and I understand

the rage.

Someone said that melancholy

is tragedy handled well. 

breaking out of your comfort zone

Is the key to freedom from 

the cottage of contentment.

too small for you but everything 

you think you need, 

within arms reach.

How do you know

what you need- Now

Meditate, 

we are advised- Let it go

as if commitment was the culprit.

Break habits, make space and then

Kintsugi.

Same thing as working with what we have. 

Is that the work

that pays 

nothing but costs everything?

Expectations interfere,

and fear is expected.

For the winners-

overcome and overflowing; All

the times we cannot hold onto,

the memories we cannot release

and the future that refuses to arrive.

Setbacks and leg ups, 

there was always more to gain by loss.

Painting by Nikolai Yaroshenko, 'Portrait of a woman' c. 1893 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inventing opportunity

One day I'll make it.
I don't know what-but it will be good!
And
It will work-
                      all-It-self-out.
Making music together…
Hanging little notes on harmony…
It will sound like Peace.
And it will be the perfect
Temperate, the good-kind-
                       all-ways, Eden…
Forgive me, I was distracted There
Where was I?
You are Here needing a new map-
or the cartographers tools-precise
positively exacting.
Anyway-
It will have wide double swinging,
doors of Opportunity-
permitting construction, 
                         as I grow.
Blowing the tops off,
ripping off the roof to show how,
echoes only repeat mistakes
                          little people inside steeples.
Been there.
Without time for interior decorating or renovating-
                          just focus on the façade.
Inside is where it is, where is dwells-
                           I can move it-if I only knew
what it used to look like…
It is not finished-yet.
You see, I may never Be.
I'm missing a piece-
                          or more.
And
I forgot which door I was looking for.
Locked up next to Remember and Remorse,
one is painted Amber and the other Aquamarine.
And
after knocking all around I found-
Today was the day,
I was forgetful enough
to Fail.

Composed 4/23/15.

Image of Frederick Collins, Inventor, pictured with a "wireless telephony device" circa 1904. 



             

Shall I Try Another Time?

As a bird of prey with keen honing eye

                                              All seeing

confidently commits to the kill

                                              knowing after all

He can fail.

Grasping and gasping for air, falling-

Still-                                       soaring in circles,

subdued in submission.

Resigned to a risk,

                                               not for Nothing. 

Tenacious talons will tell

                                               He keeps hunting around,

as a matter of life and death

                                               never quitting...

An intricate, symmetric web design,

a netting of nightly nuisance,

the magical machination of the arachnid,

                      in sinewy fracturable strands-

in an encrypted complex pattern.

So the spider must re-do, re-sew

                                                His yarn anew with each moon,

re-fabricating a miracle, laying his labyrinths,

never quitting…

Beyond prepositional propositions:

To fish is not to catch-To want is not to need-

To have does not necessitate-The gravitation pull of greed-

As a means to an end-Let us pretend-

We could not fail- in Our personal tale-

needing revising, strategizing, 

                                                 Meaning, 

intention,                                  Willful suspension...

Tick-tock the clock, the pendulum of idleness

pity us cursed humans

we sway so easily, steady she goes,

                                                  resigned in rhetorical routine.

A regular beat, monotonous, sonorous,

                                                 the triangle rings in our ears,

resounding all hollows, our bell may toll,

                                                 heavy in our burdens of want.

Reverberating need-pangs of truth

To strive or quit-To stay or split

persist and exist, to opt out-to prefer never

to quit again                              or die

trying

another time?

Feature image used by Dave Menke [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, US Fish & Wildlife