The Ocean

Black as a bear, forceful as a tiger,
Sea gives way to shining sea.
Captor of minds, and victim all the same,
Raging in solitude, it finds its peace.
Force of nature, an untamed beast,
Powerful beyond imagination,
Aloof yet harmless
The stunning mass exudes passionate beauty,
A sparkling sight.
Where it has been, no one knows;
What it will do – any guess is good.
Beauteous to a fault, it lights up the night.
The tides rush in every direction.
Yet they are devastatingly purposeful –
Sometimes malicious, sometimes a trusted friend.
Stunning yet a killer,
Water, yet a storm,
Night and day it lives and breathes,
Passion never worn,
Rushing through every forgotten corner.
For it is the sapphire of the planet,
Moonlit and raging or sunny and calm,
Force-filled or reflective. It lives on.

Suicide

I can taste the metal, cold as death, in my mouth.
It is something I can’t live with, yet can’t do without.
Thoughts race with my heartbeat as my finger slips in place,
Yet, ironically, time stops; the world seems to quit its craze.

Doubt assails me as my fingers feel around the trigger.
But after all these years of torment, there is not much more to figure.
This moment will not change my life; it will end it for good –
All the deeds that I have done, been so misunderstood.
What is the point of living, when I really died years ago?
Why wonder what could have been – on the world will go.

Thoughts race. Images flash in my mind’s eye
Of times and moments gone by.
They mean nothing to anyone but me,
And who am I if I am not free?

Logic trickles through my heightened senses,
Screaming but seeming silent as the wind.
Reality hits me suddenly,
The heavy, cold barrel permeating my mouth.

My trembling hands suddenly steady.
My finger stands at the ready.
My mind goes blank.
I can hear myself breathing. Hard.
And then – nothing.

The words find their way through the utter void,
Awake, alive, playing my mind like a toy –
Echoing in the mountains of my brain: “You are a coward.”
For I had given up rather than moving forward.

The gun seems harmless as I slowly remove it,
Relieving my tongue of the weight of a bottomless pit.
I raise the barrel, looking it eye to eye.
Yet I cannot do it; it is not my time to die.

I almost got freedom, in all its metallic glory –
Almost surrendered to some cops and a jury.
I had almost become just another tragic case,
Yet, somehow, I’d found the courage to face
The opportunities and challenges, whatever life threw my way –
The heart to be thankful to be given each day.

For true freedom requires clarity of mind,
Something one clang of metal would have left behind.

Darkness

The moonless night provides comfort,
The freedom to admit the truth.
It does not judge like the light of day –
Simply renders everything moot.
It is a dream that cannot last,
For it must give way to dawn.
But just for now, it is total peace;
It does not brag or taunt.

It is under the cover of darkness
That time seems to stand still.
All selfish, worldly desires fade,
And the guilt of causing ill.
Maybe I hurt you, or you hurt me –
You can’t wish away the past.
But now they’re all just memories.
What’s the point of making them last?

If it were up to me, the sun
Would never rise again.
I’d live my life in darkness,
Quiet until the end.
I’d hurt none and help none;
I’d just come and go.
Pain, pleasure – all mine;
No one would ever know.

Yet a new day must begin...

Corners of the World

Worlds rotate within worlds,
Unseen shadows, unknown struggles –
The Afro-Cuban marginalized, smothered by the mainstream;
The radical contradictions that make up Dubai;
The Iraqi child’s family lost to a world of culture he admires.

Humanity –
A story
Of culture, free and suppressed,
Of wealth and poverty,
Of privilege and strife,
Of voices heard and voices silenced,
Of understanding and delusion,
Of those who simply subsist and those who strive for better.

There are differences of perspective,
Of perception and reality;
There are clashes of culture,
And struggles with identity.
The conflicts appear personal –
Internal, religious, each individual’s place in the world.
Yet as the smallness of the struggles is recognized,
The deepest rings of the tree pushed outward,
Each one of us gives way to the story of the people –

A people limited not by country or continent or belief,
But by the power of our minds and the diversity of our perspectives.
A people daunted by questions –
Of love and pain,
Of faith and lies,
Of freedom and bondage,
Of gain and sacrifice,
Of pride and worthlessness,
Of limitations and capabilities in the great cosmic joke that is the universe.

We plan and we exploit;
We forgive and we repent.
When did it become “us” versus “them”?
Humans against humans,
Tormenting without reason,
Afraid to know for fear that the truth
Will remove the blindfold with blinding light.

When will we realize
That our struggle is the same –
The yearning to express and be understood,
To relate, to belong, to do something, to make a difference,
To feel, to live and die without regrets,
To have a taste of happiness, if only for a moment,
To be remembered, to be missed,
To find a deeper meaning before the short journey of life comes to a dead end,
To die in peace.

Bondage

Incarcerated for a lifetime,
The tiger paces in its cage.
Its soft coat and beauty
Conceal pure force and rage.

Deemed a danger to society,
It is punished out of fear.
For some it serves as entertainment,
While others taunt and jeer.

Yet with every step, every stride
It takes on captive ground,
The tiger envisions that blessed day
When it will no longer be bound.

It plans its escape to freedom
As it paces to and fro.
Today, simply an amusement –
Tomorrow, the world will know.

Stranger

You may think you know me.
You may think you understand.
You may hear what I say,
Read the letters of my hand.

I can’t blame you for assuming;
It’s what everyone does.
You can guess my thoughts and motives,
Let your beliefs replace the fuzz.

But in truth, you’re just guessing.
You don’t really know what I want.
Once a vibrant image, now fading,
A forgotten old haunt.

Timebomb

Hello. Howdy. Good morning.
Darkness slowly subsides.
New day.

Tick. Tick.

Some look. No one sees.
Lost in their own frustrations.
Typical day.

Tick. Tick.

Day in. Day out. Unobscured.
Obvious to all and none.
Maybe today.

Tick. Tick.

Explosion. Fire. Inevitable.
"Oh, but he seemed so nice."
Not today.

Tick. Tick.