Choosing Mean

Conscience(CAI 2019)

When did it become cool to be unkind?
A merit badge of honour?

When did pushing boundaries become thumbing noses
And personal ambition become winner takes all?

When did people become unapologetically,
unashamedly,
mean?

Each person must choose it every day
to be that way
they have to choose. But
maybe it's not again and again
choice after choice,
but simply one choice, to not care
then hold, hold fast, right there
Pandora's box shut tight.

I imagine how that would feel
to protect, guard this new power
like it represents sanity
like I've finally found the way around all the pain
that others' suffering naturally launches inside
the empathy that resides in our hearts from the start
To have found a pain-killer for the soul.

It must be as addictive as crack.

Imagine! to have discovered a way
to thwart life's inherent poignancy
the pull of destiny that doesn't exist
the contradictory means to survive;
to have someone clear to blame, something empowering to believe
that lets me off the hook, a reprieve
imagine slipping through the grip of guilt
Hoarding all my caring just for me!

I feel exhilaration, freeing all the possibilities previously bound by honour
shifting that honour to me and mine
a lovely switch and bait that feels like freedom
from mommy's nagging whine about what's right

I mean, who's to say? We can't trust the evidence of our eyes
or the people who run our lives
and where is our God or Hero to save the day? Guess what?
we have ourselves to save.

Yes, there's a strength and pride, to come out the other side of caring.

Nice trick if you can.

maybe I should be jealous, or mad
but all I feel is sad.

Mattering

Reversed Emission (CAI)

I suppose it's true
that nothing I do matters
that my words dissipate in the air
all I am is contained in here, this body
and when she stops, who will care
for longer than it takes to order a beer?
All the trying and striving, wonder and worry
all the ways I thought I mattered
barely a line in the sand, whisked by wind
not even a grain remains to say
I was here
(wasn't I?)

The day I let you down (short poetical)

Breach (CAI2019)

Where was I the day I let you down?
was I looking at the sky or at the ground?
how did I miss the moment?
blithely going my way; floundering, too,
but you, you
you were trying to fly
and I didn't even know
why I was there
you needed my air to go
all I had to do was blow your way
but I spent the day
on nothing at all, and let you fall.