As Elba instructed Napoleon, all men ARE islands; some are just in better climates. -- John Litzenberg, from The Secret Undertown Ministry
Some things exist to turn perceptions inside out;
their presence tends to shift and rend to shreds the veils,
and introduce in even the most stable mind some doubt
by subtlety reminding pristine saints of crucifixion's nails;
Despite all valiant efforts to resist the twist of time
that folds and spindles all the distance one has come,
in just a moment's span, the truth becomes much less sublime
and the most eloquent tongues are left wordless and dumb
While back in chasms of the tortured past
the mind is thrown, like Christians to the raving beasts;
and in a fateful second, the losing die is cast
upon which the future, risked, becomes the very least
of measures that describe the scope of hope and life.
And in those frenzied fragments, when belief
has turned against the back of faith its traitor's knife,
its mad aggression finding no escape route or relief
The helplessness of childhood falls upon the soul,
and one is left to wonder how for almost forty years
the palimpsest illusion built up so well, of self-control
can vanish in a few seconds, leaving only bitter tears.
From some things that wear old, familiar masks
an energy of entropy and chaos seems to engulf and drown,
seeking to remind us, as we struggle at life's tasks,
that to see us as we used to be, some will want to bring us down.
14 MAY 2004
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