Tag: Poem

Distracted Meditations

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry20 Comments

What are we doing?  Does anybody know?
Where are we going? Is there anywhere to go?
If a purpose was given to us, why do so few people show it?
If God suddenly appeared would anyone know it?
And if purpose is ours, can we make it good?
We really should
Too many people are looking for entertainment,
Content with containment,
Step outside of yourself and take a look,
Behind the crannies and the nook,
How others live and the pain they face,
The collective suffering of the human race

Do we shed that weight by pulling others down?
If we all saw the size of the load and shared it,
Wouldn’t we all feel it a little bit less?

We spend too much time yelling and shaming,
Pointing and categorizing and naming,
Bullied, berated, ground down and weathered,
Shortening the rope to the post they are tethered
What do we expect of people when they are made to feel small,
Is anyone paying attention at all?
This is serious yet we only hear laughter,
“This is funny we’ll deal with the consequences after,
Hurray for the charlatans, make them our leader,
Learn how to win being a liar and cheater,”
Scientists are mocked with joyful derision,
Horders of wealth keep creating division,
We laugh too much at authenticity,
Complexity,
It’s complicity

Tired and mired, stuck in a rut,
Can we open hearts and minds that are shut?
Will technology render our abilities useless,
To hide in digital world that is toothless,
What kind of future are we paving?
Are we even a species worth saving?
Chasing money, and spending, acquiring more stuff,
Work away your leisure time, it’s never enough,
Believing in fiction, the worst of addictions,
The pestilence of wealth, the worst of afflictions
The beauty in this world comes at no cost,
There seems to be no reason for feeling so lost,

I listen to What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong,
Being moved by music, inspired by words,
And it seems so simple, so easy,
Life is so momentary.
Let’s stop filling it with wasted moments
The glass isn’t half empty or half full,
We’re just dreaming of holy grails,
Instead of breaking bread with our neighbors
Squandering the fruits of our labors
Thinking children’s smiles are made from action figures,
Instead of letting them chase you around the park,
Watching fireflies in the dark
We think that love is forged through diamond rings,
Instead of walking hand in hand in the bloom of spring,
Impressing our friends with bigger houses and cars,
Instead of trading stories about sources of scars
Under the stars

Close your eyes and feel the summer breeze,
Listen to the sounds of the whispering leaves,
And want for nothing

Of the Many and the One

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry, Science10 Comments

In late spring thaws or pouring rain,
The water finds its way from peak to base,
With gravity and a groove it is turned,
First one way and then another,
Splitting here or there as chance permits,
So many thrills, with rills, and spills,
Into braided streams and channels,
Until all the many choices become one.

And where that mighty mouth,
Dares a salty kiss on majestic sea,
It slows its approach out of respect,
And unloads grain upon grain,
Until a bed is made for them both,
And the river does tease with dendritic hands,
The ocean ebbs and flows with delight,
In brackish ecstasy they become one.

In winter bare does the tree invite,
A labyrinthine exercise for the eyes,
From small sprout it begins to climb,
Branch to branch, twig to twig,
Steadily, always going out on a limb,
Spreading high and wide, leaves unfurling,
All to catch those golden rays of sun,
The majestic sylvan purpose is one.

Darkened skies heavy with bloated drops,
An ominous base hovers over thirsty land,
Millions of electrons bully others away,
Full of potential an army charges out,
Their leader searches from something positive,
It sends one battalion here, one there,
A more covert operation you’ll never see,
And in a flash, power surges in finding the one.

And as I sat and pondered these things,
I looked ahead at the decisions before me,
And those that were far behind,
Would one different turn have changed me?
And what decision should I make next,
Not knowing where I might be sent?
Are all the many branches of possibility,
Just an illusion that lead to an outcome of one?

The Understudy

On By Swarn GillIn Love, Prose and Poetry6 Comments

He always liked to make people smile,
It was the way his daddy looked,
When he wasn’t smiling he was stressed,
Worried and wasn’t all there
And when he’d make his daddy laugh,
It all went away,
And so he tried to be funny all his days,
It became a craft and an art,
Something to fail at from time to time.

He always knew real beauty,
He liked to be around it,
Like wanting to be close to the fire,
On a chilly winter’s dark
The occasional dive,
As the smoke curls around the room,
But the romance was in his mind,
And love was in his eyes,
But never figured out how to make it work,
Not being mechanically inclined

He always had a gift for language,
He liked the way it moved and folded,
Slipping off the tongue,
Only to wonder if he should have held back,
And that was a way to move people,
But he never quite had the passion,
It wasn’t easy to express excitement,
When you’re too busy being amazed
If you can get him to be quiet,
He’d love to hear your voice

Scuttling along the sand,
He looks a bit odd
But I assure you he’s quite harmless,
It’s just an occasional tickle

Colors in the Air

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry4 Comments

You’d make a good bird
I’m not sure what kind
One that flies with confidence
Not flapping noisily
Panicky from place to place
You fly higher than most
Not the type to prey
Not to say you don’t get hungry
You think yourself fluffy
But you are feathered
Smooth and sleek design
Showing you have direction
Purpose

I wonder what bird you are
Something colorful to be sure
But not so small
That only binoculars will do
Companion sized
Something that looks formidable
Perched on your shoulder
Too striking to be menacing
Something tropical perhaps
Perhaps common in some far off place
But rare and breathtaking to me
And so I am left to wonder
What it might actually be like
To watch you take flight

I’m okay with pictures in a book
Some beauty feels peaceful
Just knowing it’s out there
Up there

Sometimes I do think I see you when I look up
And I can’t help but sigh long with a wide smile

Thoughts of Babylon

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry16 Comments

It moves in a sine wave
It’s sinewy and sinuous
There is a place of eternal equinox
The line bisects the sphere
Just as the setting and rising of the sun
Bisects hot day and tolerable night

It’s like in the movies,
Maybe a time lapse, or desert heat
You can watch it rise or sink

Only twelve hours to make that long arc
Quickly burning day, deep expansive dark
And there was the horizon and there was the sun
You knew when it started, you knew when it was done

North, because why not
The sun finds gentler journey
And the axis through that sine wave
Moves with the season, it is the reason
It’s just a latitude adjustment
The ebb and flow of dark and night

I wondered about the Arctic Circle
There are days when the descent
Must move so slowly

You just couldn’t stare at the sun that long
But keep an eye out, drink coffee, stay strong
And there was the horizon and there was the sun
For one moment, the sunrise and sunset are one

I go now to stand on shrinking ice
Along with my polar bear family
I will step on that pivot point
And there will I finally own time
Around the world by foot
Around the clock tonight

The sine wave becomes a straight line
A line that oscillates a revolution
But in the moment, no eye could detect

The sunrise and sunset would last for days
Far too long even for a lover’s gaze
And there was the horizon and there was the sun
It looks like it’s moving, but you’re being spun

My Ode to Winter

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry12 Comments

In silence you approach, slowly darkening days,
Autumn arrays of color fade to deathly brown,
Precious skies of blue are replaced by grays,
Sharp winds blow across frozen ground.

And then one day you bring all to standing still,
I watch as my breath, eager to show it’s alive,
Disappears hopelessly into air it can’t fill,
Icy touch on the shoulder of all that thrived.

And what more can we do who wait?
Where night comes early, but feels so late.
Hope for snow to settle on barren limbs?
A touch of white when all seems grim.
Snowy blanket covers the harvest’s reaping,
Lets us pretend the Earth is happily sleeping.

Each slippery step on landscape so bleak,
As we drudge through our lives week after week,
You take no pleasure as you tally the score,
We see what you’ve taken and you hunger for more,
And just when you drain our heat to burn our skin,
Though you love your endings, in the end you won’t win.

For when the sun hides for its longest hours,
We gather with friend and kin to warm with love,
With charitable hearts gloomy Death does cower,
Mocked by hopeful songs of the mourning dove.

New Year’s rejoicing as the sun climbs higher,
Dreams of future gains and not what we lack,
You snap and bite at us, even as you tire,
As snow melts into thawing soil, life bites back.

Two Lines

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry14 Comments

Two lines at a time,
That’s all I want to write.

The brilliance fades quickly,
Because I’ll be on to something else,
And those two lines,
They won’t make any sense.
But maybe they will again tomorrow,
I’ll remember what I wanted say,
And by the end of the week,
The month,
The year,
I’ll have written some poetry,
Something that will blow a soul away,
And you’d never tell,
That I didn’t just sit down and write it,
All in one gasping breath of inspiration,
The exaltation that moves me so much,
That I can only write two lines,
Without getting lost in the music,
Without getting thirsty,
Without needing sleep.

When Atlas has to set the world down,
There shall be a revelation in two lines.

Reason

On By Swarn GillIn Philosophy, Prose and Poetry17 Comments

I know that darkness won’t endure,
But sometimes it’s hard to see in the dark,
But I will not lose my reason,
My desire to understand the seasons,
Turning leaves reveal the truth,
Known to every pimpled youth,
There is no escaping that things change,
And so you can hold on
And squeeze the moment,
But it will eventually slip like sand,
And with time abrading your open fingers,
To make sure you learn lessons well,
To remind you, you’re avoiding the inevitable.

You can wallow in the quagmire of your beliefs,
You can even inspire with a clever tongue,
You can wipe clean all that science has found,
And it will come back and haunt you,
But humanity is no ghost,
It is curious and is happiest when it discovers,
Even though it risks its happiness,
Because somewhere in the maze of consciousness,
We know that without the risk there is no joy,
No success, no growth
We are not content to look through a pinhole,
While one eye looks at the dark, and the rest
Of our senses atrophy into putrid decay.

Each time that you hate and dehumanize,
You become less than you think you are,
Your victims more than you think they are.
And I will oppose you with heart, with teeth,
And you will fight on the battleground of reason,
Or risk endless cycles violence,
Ripping parents from children,
Casting yourself into an oblivion,
That you believe to be paradise,
All because you never knew,
How great a human you could become,
How so many pieces of existence,
Were waiting for you to know them.

And you will pay dearly for unwise choices,
And you will be forgiven,
Because the world has loss and pain,
But nobody really wants to destroy you but time,
And none of us have any say over that,
Make your meaning out of the indifferent universe,
And treat existence like a gift.
Because it is.

Sentience

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry26 Comments

Greeting, meeting

How do I absorb you
A precipice below me
A chasm before me
And there you are unreachable
But I hear your words
They drive like daggers
They drench like warm rain
They taste sweet like sugar
They embrace like satin
Each molecule gains purpose
And finds the next one

Compression, procession

They echo into silence broken,
I hang on every word that’s spoken,
Dashing through my circuitry,
Electrically charged syllables,
Dripping with potential,
And new life, blurred at the edges
Unfurls amid quantum fluctuations
Speak faster to build me a bridge
Suspension…of disbelief
It’s precisely what I need
Take me, entice me

Ambition, attrition

Fragile like porcelain
I pray to angels on high
That they save you from breaking
Breathtaking, panting
The lines are slanting
Are you leaning toward me
I lean too, and we learn
Unfolding while we yearn
Blossoming in each other’s garden
Plucked into pretty bouquet
Add water and trim stem
Fragrance for another day
And we waft towards each other
Circling floral perfume
I shall not presume
But I thank you for sharing

Merging, diverging

Vicious Truths and Sweet Nothings

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry13 Comments

Fell into a perfect ending,
But the last page was missing,
I looked for right angles and straight lines,
And all I found was mostly irrational.

I’ve prepared a speech for just such an occasion,
You’d swoon and be moved to tears,
But when it came time to speak,
My throat closed and I choked on every word,
I let it drop to the floor and fall to pieces,
A dissection of imperfection,
A bloody vulnerable mess to be sure,
But I wanted there to be no doubt,
You’d capitulate and even smile,
I’ve got questions that wait for answers,
But as long as your voice answers,
It doesn’t matter what you say with it,
Or if you just sit in silence,
Thinking mirrored thoughts,
Moving in mirrored movements,
Taking a little walk around the room,
Staring at doors down the hall of the mind,
As beautiful as the memories behind them,
The knob is right in front of me somehow
Is it locked or was I afraid to open it?

Leaning back, I slump on the floor,
The wood is warm, just close your eyes.

It’s life and there’s nothing tidy about it,
Your heart stops without warning and starts again,
And you go on like nothing ever happened,
It’s a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day,
It’s a long heavy sigh that aches but doesn’t hurt,
And I can’t stop myself from another deep breath.