You extend all your labor
On something you’ll never catch
For the false appears real
Making life surreal

A façade of being happy
You race towards success
College
Job
Marriage
Family
Retirement

You extend all your labor
On satisfying the next thing
A little bit more
You just can’t ignore

You delude yourself into thinking
That you’re in control
Always in doubt
As to what life is all about
But
Too many get fooled
By an endless barrage
Chasing after life’s retreating mirage
*************************************
“…Mirages are things that aren’t really there
That you can see very clearly”
Norton Juster
“The Phantom Tollbooth”

Mirror mirror on the wall
Help me  to recall
The images in my mind
Reflection of a likeness
Place my thoughts in rewind

Memories reflect
Thoughts that are scattered
I try to collect
But it doesn’t seem to matter

Reasoning aside
I try my best
To forget the past
To put my thoughts to rest
But
Learning to forget
Has not happened yet
So
I’ve learned at last
To live with the past

Mirror mirror on the wall
It doesn’t matter after all
Becoming introspective
I’m now self-reflective

Are you the victim?
Of smiling hatred
Emanating from a calcified heart
For that’s where it starts

Are you tempted by smiling lust?
Lust or bust
Sex
Sports
Food
Popularity
Music

Are you a slave?
Do you crave?
Smoking
Alcohol
Drugs

Does your appetite for leisure
Mean cheap substitutes
For pleasure?

Does society?
Strap a “dead” body to your back
Are you chained to corruption
With subliminal seduction

If so ,don’t tarry
For in life
You are what you carry
***********************
“We forge the chains
We wear in life”

Charles Dickens

Call me sullen
Call me morose
Call me resentful
Call me embittered
Call me “Mara”

An empty glass
Of bitter water
A heart in tribulation
An empty state
In need of regeneration

My heart
My thoughts
I need to scour
A rose will either
Wither or flower
For
Suffering can make you either
Sweet or sour
***********************
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander
be put away from you, along with all malice.”
Ephs. 4-31

Can’t sing
What can’t be song
Can’t move
What can’t be moved
Can’t change
What can’t  be changed
You question life
But life doesn’t have
All the answers

Have you already reaped
What you have sowed?
Have you reached?
The end of the fence line
The sign at the end of the road
Or
Are you still waiting?
For the doorbell to ring
For the package to arrive
Is this how you survive?
Is this the only thing that
Keeps you alive?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Here we go round the prickly pear
prickly pear prickly pear.
Here we go round the prickly pear
at 5 o’clock in the morning.”
T.S. Eliot

Stealing time
That’s all we’re givin’
Discriminant amounts
Portioned out to the livin’

Where have they gone?
Far from sight
Surrounded by darkness
Out of sight

Is there a pit
Where man descends?
Into the dark place
With no end

Silence in solitude
Once known
Among the living
Now I’m alone

Is life just a flip of a quarter?
A random choice
With no voice
A fleeting glance
Left to chance
For death it would seem
Has no pecking order

Hide yourself
Where the water rushes over the rocks
Near the evergreen foliage
A quiet Place
For meditation

Drink the clear water
From the fresh bubbling brook
Wet on the lips
Quenching the tongue

Drink till full
Store away
Prepare yourself for
Lesser days

For when
The water stops flowing
And the brook dries up
Where do you turn?
What have you learned?
Never knowing
When your thirst will return
****************************
“He will drink from a brook beside the way;
Therefore he will lift up his head.”
Psalm (110:7)

Hearts of stone
Stand alone
For reasons known
History has shown

A heart left unattended
Can never be mended
Left to defy
It blinds the eye

Unjust judgments
Twisted motives
Selfish denials
Uncontrollable rage
Have placed the heart in a cage

So Awaken!
The harps,lyres,cymbals and pipes
Play a new song
Sound the trumpet
Time for a new beginning
Cut where it starts
A circumcision of the heart
****************************
“Above all else guard your heart,
For it affects everything you do”
Proverbs 4:23