Circles

I wrote this one late last night
As you've probably gathered from the title, it's about circles.

It isn't a new thought at all,
and I certainly don't claim to be its originator
yet it befuddles me time and again
how magically real circles are.

Once you're in, you can never stop,
on and on it goes in perfect completion,
a single whole,
so "right" to our troubled minds.

Yet circles scare me.

Ceaseless perfection is
well, ceaseless.

Never ending, never beginning, just on and on and on

Nothing new, nothing old,
round and round in the routine uniformity
which we chase so desperately
but can never achieve.

It is so wonderful to me
so incredibly perfect
that our lives are laden with imperfection

As I've often said,
we are creators,
always moving and building and making,
doing something new

No moment is like the one before
so let's stop and see it
before it's gone.

So, here's that poem.

Circles

Circle come and circle go

circle fast and racing

circle spin, doors facing

circle high and circle low

but circle lacing

cannot flow.

Circle run in spiral down

circle down the hall

circle cannot fall

circle around the foggy clown

encircles all

of water's drown.

Circle in and circle out

circle funny, laughing

circle up, store's staffing

circle sits within without

to circle's passing

scream and shout.

Circle by the river bend

circle past the sea

circle sipping tea

circle where the dreams won't end

of circular we

fight or fend.

Circle in my empty cup

circle round and round

circle of empty ground

circle low, to fall and dump

of circles found

clamp and clump.

Circle down the foggy night

circle in my dreams

circle all Earth and themes

circles out to do what's right

what circles mean

is candlelight.

Passion

This one's more of a random thought than anything

A question in the world's passing
which we know is around us
yet which we hardly ever stop
to look and really see

It seems that we miss so much;
opportunities, choices, beauty, and love
in our fervant run through the times

And, really, what are we running to?
what are we running from?
they're one and the same, really,
beginnings always prelude the ends.

And what are they to our simple eyes
if not mere dirt, water, and air?

So, in a world where the body is seen as supreme,
fashioned by the non-existant "Mother Nature,"
we really are quite confident
for such temporary things.

But, somehow,
miraculously, perhaps,
despite our worship of our own limited time and power and fate,
we do care.

We do fix and build and chase and strive,
we work for the epic "tomorrow."
and as the storyteller sings deep into the night
We listen and we hear.


Well, anyways, here's that entry.
I wrote in my diary last night.
Let me know what you think.

Passion. It's such a funny word. One among many in our largely unreal English language which has relatively no meaning but its own, and it's own meaning is none at all. We really have no idea of what passion truly is or was or means. So why is it so real? Why does it live so undoubtedly beneath each of us, fueling nearly our every action?

Why? Why do we hold such a strong power deep withing our hearts? Passion, which is love and hate and care and pain and work and speech and art and fear. It is in and of nearly everything we create. Which, in essence, is what we are. Creators. The moment we stop creating, we cease to exist, yet that creation is often displayed only in our own destruction.

Man was meant to work. It is inevitable. To build, to start, to grow, and to never ever stop. We have this strange and intrinsic concept of "purpose," which guides us to do all we do. A man must have a reason, an excuse for his existance, or he has no reason to exist at all. It is very ironic, therefore, that so much of our creation fights hard on destructive lines. That drive to be doing comes from a deep-set human push.

Which brings me back to my first question, the reason that I am writing to you at such a late hour, my hand moving fast as it scribbles across the page, racing for my devotion against the powerful call of slumber. Passion. What is it? Why do we even have or feel or need it? What is want and drive and need? Well, I suppose they are partly the reason we exist at all. It is our passions which fuel everything we do. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe passion is fuel; energy to be channeled in serving our own purpose.

And we do, indeed, have a purpose. Whether or not we chose to acknowledge it, the existance of choice is blatent and real. Yet so many chose to ignore its existance altogether, walking blindly and in doubt of their own reality. Perhaps it's because they're afraid. Afraid and, as so many in our world of doubts, unable to accept the existance of that fear. Afraid of what will face them if they do, indeed, exist. For with choice comes responsibility.

Yet with responsiblity comes connection, from which comes passion, and only with passion as our fuel can we ever create.

"He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan said that (big surprise, lol). That really is what it all boils down to. We're all busy. We must be. If we had nothing to do, we'd being doing nothing. And if that nothing is, in itself, truly absent of all something, man could never bear to do that nothing. If he could, everything would be nothing at all; a stalemate of standing time.
And he can't live in stalemate. It gets boring.

G-d is Good

This one has a different flavor than the ones I've given you so far
yet I feel it is essential that it be seen

By you, dear reader

You who struggles so desperately to grasp the meaning
printed in paper and ink by a stranger
allowing her to touch your mind and soul
without pre-condition or known purpose
it is a very dangerous game to play.

But, if you are like me,
and you strive to hear every call in the wind
to paint your collage of hope and love and truth
please, keep reading on.

One cannot appreciate
the towering oak
if he cannot see the tiny seed
which fueled its growth
and which is, in a sense, what it is and will be
the more fragile and perhaps even more beautiful side
of such a towering, majestic tree.

And this?

this is me.

The diary excerpt I am about to reveal to you
involves a concept which is more controversial, more misunderstood, and yet held more dearly to people than any I've seen.

Please do not be conformed to believe
in anything, or everything, or nothing at all
by the words that I write on this page

For you are who you are
and if you should choose to take a certain path
that is your choice, and please hold it dear.
our choices are who we are.

I believe that no ideology can ever be real to you
wholeheartedly and honestly
unless you have contrived it yourself.

Yet, the storyteller strives to speak truth
and the song the storyteller sings
is not edited to fit the ears of its beholders

so, read, if you wish

or don't if you do not

or read and agree,

or read and disagree,

or don't read and tell yourself that don't regret not reading,

or stand with no feet upon the icy realms of curiosity until it beckons you so determinedly that you come back and read again.

So, here goes:

There is so much beauty in this world. It is incredible to me how much there is standing before us, so patiently waiting for us to open our eyes.

Every bird has a tree to sleep in, every tree has a patch of its own, and in several small moments, when I will close my eyes to drift and dream, and leave the pen and paper within my moving hands to succumb to the tempting call of slumber, it is in warmth and comfort and love that I will let go.

The essence of all embraces me, and I welcome its call with such joy. For I am It, and It is me. We are connected by what dwells within us, though we walk upon separate lands.

The beautifully orchestrated tapestries of time and of days sing as they fill up their cups with wine. It is sweet and kind and wonderful and good. It beckons and I hear its cry.

Oh, G-d,
creator of everything,

You are One,
the Great Bestower of love

One,
in the Heavens and the Earth

One who sings
in fish and in lions and in doves

We are connected by what You have placed within me, and also by all that I can see. For everything holds its spark of You which shines when You call its everlasting name.

Please, don't hide Your face from me. My hands are weak, and I feel so alone. Take me on Your wing and I will fly. Hold me in Your arms and I will not quiver. For You are my comfort, my everything and all. Your Essence lies within me, and I feel it.

It pounds beneath my heart, sees beyond my eyes, fuels my mind with my every thought, yet so often I feel so blind. All Your creations praise You. The sun and the silver moon. The rock on the hill and the mountains so tall, and the rain and the dew and the ocean and clouds. They all declare Your Goodness and Your Mercy.

Each blade of grass and branch of tree, every flower and thorn and bush. Every fruit of the ground which falls from the sky calls to You in its sweet, clear sound.

Every ant and fish and camel, every bird and snake and dove. Every lion bows to greet You, every deer prances to fit Your plan of love.

Every man who walks Your wondrous Earth hears the great shofar and sings Your Great song. Every beggar and tramp and millionaire stands in Your presence and joins as one. Every king bows his head to Your glorious throne, every child and bride, every juggler and clown, each music man beats to Your tune.

For if not by Your Will, they would cease to exist. Each treasures His own part of You.

And I?
I am on of the trillions who walk delicately in Your wake. And as my words touch Your towering gates, please open them for me that I may be be heard.

Like a child, I cry for Your embrace. To enwrap me and hold me and steer me in Your ways. Each moment is a stroke upon a majestic painting. I hold my brush, shaking, in my tentative hands, but You smile and I go on. Please, give me Your wink that I may see Your face. Open my eyes to reality.

"A pure heart create for me, Oh G-d, and a true spirit make new within me."
King David said that

"G-d is Good."
I said that.

HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK???

Hey everyone.

This one may seem pessimistic.
I wrote it in my diary two days ago
after hearing a shockingly egotistical remark
from someone very close to me.

Although I must skip several lines
out of privacy and respect for the individuals
of whom I speak
and whom either know my feelings already,
or will if and when they are to lay eyes
upon this rapidly-growing page.

The comment stunned me,
shaking me and evoking within me
an emotion that we all feel and know
but are perhaps too cowardly
or too proud to acknowledge.

Yet, the storyteller strives to speak truth.
so, in truth I come,
and in truth I hope to go,
and it is truth that I will now utter to you,
dear reader,
as my lips quiver in the growing cold
and I struggle to reveal to you what is real.

I'm scared.

This is how it read:

It is 2:59 a.m.
My eyes grow weary as I stare down upon your ever-patient pages. It is after Shabbos, very late at night, and I struggle to keep awake. So why do I bother? Because I have a message which I feel obligated to convey to you.

And so, it is this:
I am afraid.

Why are people so stupid? What is it that lies within us that makes us so desperate to know that we're better than everyone else?

Why do we assign social values and labels to separate and break the few ties we still hold dear? Somehow, we think it is our "value" assigned to us by a very corrupt society that has the capacity to sum up who we are.

But then, if we are not compared to one another, what is the reference from which we define ourselves? Are we so terribly uncivil that we must push someone else down to make ourselves feel higher?

And furthermore, what is this great idealistic pleasure to be gained from knowing we're better than everyone else? If we spend our lives chasing that dream, what do we end with?

Either we've knocked everyone around us down mercilessly, or we've surrendered as worthless in total depression. Either way, it often seems, we end up 5 feet under ground in a pit of dirt, the same place the bodies we so worship came from to begin with.

Perhaps I sound terribly pessimistic, but I don't understand what it is that we're running to . . . or from, for that matter. Everyone seems to follow a pattern; truly so desperate to fit into a mold of silence, darkness, and power; the ultimatum of our modern definition of what is "perfection."

How ironic, then, are our undeniable differences. It is very strange that we have this inexplicable urge to push down our oppressors to rise to the top, yet we have no idea as to what the race is for.

In reality, we cannot compare ourselves to those around us because we have relatively nothing in common. There is no scale upon which to judge a man that will weigh his brother in justice.

Why is it, then, that we turn to others for judgment? Certainly there is some generic criteria for good and evil, yet who are we to deem ourselves capable of distinguishing these differences?

"One man's loss is another's gain," how sickeningly horrible are those epic words. We feed ourselves the feasts of our own bloody destruction for no other reason than the momentary sensation which is really so very detrimental.

Men often take pleasure in another's pain. The feeling of power, of the subservience of their brothers, is an addictive drug which ensnares their entire beings, blinding them to the very ideals of which they once spoke so passionately.

My Psychology teacher said the other day that our minds are manipulated. But I can't help but wonder why we make it so. It must be an active decision, for nothing can take power without its subject's consent. Yet we give that consent so willingly when someone, anyone, tells us to do so.

I believe in the Question. The epic, "If," "But," and "Why." These words have become so lost, so buried in the turn of days. Yet I dare to unhatch them once more.

For instance:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if the government didn't steal it all away? If it wasn't taken from him though he longed to feel it beneath his hungry teeth? Perhaps the reason he is unable is that he has been robbed, as so many in this country, of his home, his job, his money, and his very wood. Maybe if he didn't so worship all these trivial goods, and just didn't care about his entire life being shipped to corrupt yet some more already miserable lives in factories overseas, then maybe he would be able to get a few logs in.

However, as we're all too busy cutting down any trees that are still around to further contaminate our already polluted air in the chase of our own greed, poor Woodchuck probably doesn't miss wood at all as he likely has no idea of its existence.

He probably lives in a two-bedroom condo in Florida, which was probably just foreclosed because of an economy that's falling because of people who care too much about a green piece of paper with a face, a number, and the power to corrupt a world.

The People Cycle

I feel like we're all so stupid sometimes.

No, really.

I mean, do you ever notice
how our entire world seems to run in a circle

How we go so far
chasing our own destruction
and corrupting our own tomorrows
in our endless pattern of
fear and pain and greed?

We're so self-destructive
in our chain of falling ideals

People serve money,

Money creates lust,


Lust becomes hate,


Hate fuels bigetry,


And when bigetry constructs a society,


that society destroys people.


So, on we rant in our crumbling ways
so desperate to ruin
everything that anyone has achieved


Because that anyone
is someone else
and in a world of lies, fools, and hatred
our only achivement
is that of "me".

Why do we try so hard
in chasing and creating
such terrifyingly putrid dreams?

What great prize is to gain
from the countless hours spent
fighting and running and bleeding
with no purpose or goal?

So often it seems
that at the end of the day
we're left with nothing
but our own end.

"Be G-d's hands on Earth,
not His gavel."
my Mother said that.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that."
Martin L. King Jr. said that


"It's time to start doing stuff."
I can't believe I'm quoting him, but
Barrack Obama said that.

"When you fight with sticks,
you end up with a big pile of matches,
so let's start worrying
about someone's else's tomorrow."
I said that.

The Little Bird's Song

I think I was eight or nine when I wrote this
It was my first poem

It is strange to me,
and so miraculous
how we all change

How our bodies and minds
are so governed
by the ever turning
wheel of days

Yet our essence,
the light that shines firmly within us
shall never grow faint
or weary

It is a piece of the One Above
our Eternal connection
with our creator

And in a world
running rampant with falsehood

Where we drown
in hurt and death and lies

Where the results of our own
corrupt choices
will stab at us continuously
until we open our eyes

I can stand firm
alone, perhaps, but so very sure
That G-d is Above
and that He is One
and that He has blown my spirit within me

It is Truth

Perhaps the only Truth I know.

Anyway, here it is.

The little bird sings
tweet tweet, tweet tweet,
watching her babies fall asleep
they nestle in their cozy bed
Watching the sunset up ahead

For they have nothing at all to fear
as their mother whispers in their ears
and just before she says goodnight
she sings a song that sounds just right

And as she sings her lovely song
you can tell for miles long
that it is but love that fills the air
a love that only a mother can share

So tonight, as in your bed you lie
listen to her lullabye
but remember to not make a single peep
the little bird is fast asleep.

The Clock Keeps Ticking On

I wrote this one last night
just before I succumbed
to the ever-turning
tides of slumber

But I must first warn you

If you are among the millions
who've never blinked an eye

Never stopped to wonder
what the world will be like
when you step out your door tomorrow
and gaze, unseeingly
upon yet another
vast, narrow road

Never asked a question
never wondered why
but walked these roads so blinded
never caring or feeling

Totally numb

A silent pawn
in the game of passing time

Then you will not understand,
you can never understand
what it means to cry.

Why people feel for one another
why we embrace
and love, and give

Why we dream about tomorrow
Why we mourn, and try, and pray

If you cannot breath
the air of truth
nor taste
the tears of hope and of sorrow

You will not be more
than the dust that makes you
the sand and sea
that flows in your veins

You will never open to something more
nor see a silver moon
nor hold a broken heart

And at the end of days
when all are dancing
you will not hear
the Storyteller's Song.

Anyways, after that brief introduction
from which my hands
have grown fairly sore

here it is . . .

The clock ticks on and on
rain falls and wind howls
stars shine by a crescent moon
someone runs, something's gone
And the clock keeps ticking on

The clock ticks on and on
children run and play
laugh without a trouble or care
yet feel the ground they're standing on
And the clock keeps ticking on

The clock ticks on and on
fire shot, man is lost in vain
a brother gone, but no one's weeping
just another fallen pawn
And the clock keeps ticking on

My Mother

Open Your Eyes

I know it's a little unusual,

but the storyteller sings in art

as well as in words

for which one picture is worth a thousand.

Paint and ink are, perhaps,

the strongest revealers of truth

For when one throws oneself

unconditionally and yet so willingly

into the unchartered depths

of color and lines,

One totally immerses oneself

without precondition,

making oneself totally vulnerable

to rejection in it's worst

Art is one's everything,

the innermost voice that screams in truth

despite a world of puppets and plays

Of politicians, teachers, and speakers

who demand silence

That all must pretend

with such determination and fear

To see nothing,

hear nothing,

feel, breath, and dream nothing

To be purpsefully blinded

to all that surrounds us.

It is terrifying.

Open your eyes.

Chasing a Shadow

Okay, this one's a little weird.


It's actually a poem that I wrote in my diary

between 2:26 and 2:28 a.m., so it was really

late at night.


I think I wrote this one in less time

than any poem I've written so far.


It took me less than two minutes.


It might not make sense at first, but read it a few times.

You'll get it.


And if you've already tried,

and feel dizzy from trying with no success

and frustrated from reading a stranger's thoughts

without comprehension or gain,


run in a circle

and then the other way around


and scream, "I am ME"

if you can.


Shout, "everyone's someone they can't understand,

but they try . . . oh they try, to be someone they can."


Anyway, here it is . . .



Somewhere, far beyond the shores

Of ill-related time

No memory or rhyme

A drum beats far behind

A million forgotten scores

Chasing a shadow


A heart can beat to its own tune

Against the pouring rain

Without fear, without pain

But it's all coming soon

Chasing a shadow


The train that he can never catch

Jumped in, and it's gone

Never knew he was on

As he passed a speckled fawn

Don't need to strike no match

Chasing a shadow


So on and on it seems to go

No end near or passing

The beats of time are clashing

Ha ha, he thinks he's stashing

What he'll never know

Chasing a shadow


Passing these forgotton shores

With moonbeams on his back

Each card upon the stack

Cannot bend, but it can crack

Carry on beyond the scores

Chasing a shadow