Journey to Ixtlan

The poem “Could Love Me” is about the struggle that the depressed face and the healing touch of those who seek to bridge to the suffering soul.


Could Love Me

If you could love me
would I know the truth
would I get a note
to span this gap in between?
perhaps I know you in passing
one of many in my world
invisible in my meager sight
phantoms in my misery.

Silence is my constant mate
escort of a thousands slights
so loud as to drown the world
in the vacuum of nothingness
in this swirl of outside hush
the inside screams you do not hear
echo within to fill my ears.

The lack of touch is too much
heavy hand where none persists
pressing down like the limb
missing yet still needing feel
hunger prompts the memories
of the meals within past arms
sup’d desire spun to feed
the beast that lives inside of me.

If you could love me I should know
shared to break the walls of my mind
feel the touch from an outside world
hear the voice of someone else
while the pain may still remain
torment me as I find my way
I’ll embrace my place in the world
no longer phantom to the ones that care.

2016, Sean Green. All Rights Reserved, 20161005.

Inspiration is a funny thing. The poem “Raise a Drink” was inspired first by a pictorial meme. The author published a series of photos his perfect girlfriend. He ended it with the acknowledgement that she was now an ex, and he did not realize what he had during the relationship. This got me thinking about a life situation in which my best friend is also a near stranger. I tried to express this dichotomy, but I ended up writing a poem about a person who was drowning their sorrows because of a lost love, perhaps lost because of a wrong the drinker performed. This isn’t what I do, but that’s where the poem went.


Raise a Drink

Here's to one I do not know,
long companion cast away,
gone forever from my world.
Even now I'd hold them close,
cry to heaven with shut doors
if my memories were more than smoke.

Raise a drink to the mystery,
acknowledge my sins are many,
why life unwinds in ways oblique.
The eyes are closed, heart is broke,
life unseen as tears collide
in my glass more clear than life.

Beverage will cloud my thoughts,
welcomed thief of my sight,
impure savior of dubious plots.
Devil's brew makes past obscure,
present mired in deep gloom
while future departs from my view.

Salute the dark corridors,
paths I'll walk when I rise
from this seat of suffering.
Melancholy will have its way,
in time I'm damned to replay
when the bottles lose their sway.

A last toast to time's deceit,
damn not the ghost I expose,
the wrong was mine to commit.
To say otherwise is conceit
the cursed change I rail against
was mine to stop or to commit.

© 2016, Sean Green. All Rights Reserved, 20160129.

I had an opportunity to think about lives divided. For a time lives are shared. Life happens, fate intervenes, choices are made, and two roads are taken. The outcome of these thoughts was the poem “Crossroads”.


Crossroads
Bonus Poem for Day 186 – 20150705

Two roads taken,
by choice and by fate,
two roads walked,
separated at the crossroads.
There is a tale to be told of roads,
they run long and hard through life,
partners on the journey temporary
when the crossroads are met.

The road ran in a single thread,
two lives marched in loving step.
Give and take, fight and embrace,
still the path was shared by both.
Divergence came one fateful day,
the single road met two connected,
the journey could continue in singular,
just as likely to split apart.

Listen to me young ones,
adults make the hard choices,
the ones that last a lifetime,
the ones that define destiny.
You'll never understand the choices
until your walk in their shoes.
Footprints in the path seem clear,
the reasons you'll truly never know.

Making the commitments,
setting the intentions,
seeking the pleasure,
finding the salvation.
It's not easy, its not fair,
but sadly it was meant to be.
Two roads taken at the crossroads,
two lives separated at the crossroads.

© 2015, Sean Green. All Rights Reserved.

I have my own set of experiences. For good, bad, or ugly, they color my understanding the world. There are others in the world with incredibly different life experiences. These differences can come in the form of age, race, religion, community, or society. Sometimes there are more differences than similarities between myself and the people I encounter. While we call this normal, this gives me zero permission to make harsh assumptions about their life. Too often human kind reacts in fear to the unknown, and this reaction extends to other people. The fear presents dark visions instead of bright possibilities. Diversity becomes danger. Wisdom becomes madness. Why? Ah! That is grist for another poem. Now it is enough to state that fear or righteousness are not the vehicle for reconciling our life experiences with another person's.


You Human
Bonus Poem for Day 060 – 20141122

Through the hazy window
I see your world in shadow.
I see only the maligned,
little do I know of your kind.
I see you as less than human.
Lack of empathy is illusion.
You have the tears of joy,
you have the scars of pain.

Can I understand your way
within the breadth of my Lord's Day?
Moral high ground laid low,
poor substitute for knowing.
I cannot speak honestly,
I have no authority.
An intellectual slum,
to speak would show me dumb.

A disconnect exists here,
Your way of life is what I fear.
Can I live your private life,
if I only see there strife?
Please forgive my ignorance,
my fear is the hindrance.
You deserve recognition,
this has become my mission.

No more this war of hate,
the discord must abate.
My own I must defy,
you are as human as I.

© 2014. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved.