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

Train

this blog is my own sort of outlet to the world

the voice in which I strive to speak truth

to a world where falsehood runs rampant

upon a narrow blackened road.

so, here goes . . .

I feel, sometimes, that we tend to walk

so far and for so long,

with so little and yet so much,

to ride a train we can never catch.

And if we do happen to catch that never-ending train,

we hardly ever recognize that it's beneath our frozen feet.

And if we are so fortunate to wake up

and open our eyes

to the roaring train in which we sit so silently,

we are repulsed by the poisoned air that fills our lungs.

We cannot breath without choking,

yet we hardly ever think to stand and walk away.

We choose our own conductor,

fill the train, and rail the tracks,

yet when we sit with billions of others

in stalemate of missing homes

we are so blinded by our own corruption.

We set the traps which trip us,

the clocks which stop us,

and the hands that guide us,

yet we hardly ever reach the destination.

Few can ever see where they are,

hear deafened calls,

feel a beating heart,

and still stand upright and undeterred.

So on we travel in our fervent silence

We're so stubbornly hopeless

in our race for time and lust and pride

We were so meticulous in painting a perfect world,

but forgot to turn on the light.

It is strange somehow.