Growth!
In love
and trust
and respect
this unity blossoms
spiraling forward
resonating in time
and learning.
Trials and tests
that rock smooth sailing
are parried
for they bear no weight
when malice and evil
sweep in and contest
this union -
stand in goodness and truth!
Never to lose focus
of wills that bind
person and person
and spirit to spirit;
when four is connected
make one!
One!
Never-ending
Experiences
That
We
Enjoy
Name
The
Years
Our
Natural
Eternity.
Empty hands
are infinite possibilities
in silent potency
waiting.
Aimless when
in mindless motion
a heavy palm
groping.
Put it thought
and open up
in anticipation
hoping.
For fingers stretched
those ready vessels
with willingness
receiving.
To pair this half
with its reflection
holding together
loving.
This river, flowing,
of Pontus, growing
in the verdant cradle of Ge
is galloping horses
and chariot of gold
that aims for Uranus as goal.
Sprung from darkness
which Chaos has spelled
where the gods and universe came.
spews Nux and Erebus’
abyssmal domain;
desire for their father to reign.
Come now Hemere
and brother Aether
armed with bolt of thunder and scythe
to end all the tension
of Brightness and Night
and one of the two, to remain.
But Eros, approach,
the healer of strife
divine panacea to all.
The daughter of Rhea
and champion of sky
will couple and trample discord!
To nod and to pass
will, Darkness and Light,
and touch now to usher accord.
Remember, oh, mortal
by total eclipse,
Apollo and Cynthia wed!
They’re everywhere, the passersby are. Each one with a face. Each one with a name. To you, each one is but another stroke to the twofold blur at the corners of your eyes. In effect, they are nobody to you, save for the fact that there’s an accidental, impersonal relationship that’s made.
Who is a passerby? Honestly.
A passerby is a harmless individual. Has there been harm in simple passing by? Well? Has there? Unless the passerby happened to come by at an inconvenient time to you like, for example, you just killed a person, then that passerby might have just brought doom upon his or her self. (Not that I’m saying you ever killed anyone or that there’s a serial killer streak in you. Or have you? Well?).
You pass by. They pass by. Who cares? It’s a free world. You can pass all you want. Just pass. Don’t harm anyone and leave no carbon footprint behind. (The talk on the Green Planet seems to be getting into me now). If you are a passerby, then to the people who encounter you, you are worth nothing, really. Unless (here’s another one) you’re a hunk of a man or the embodiment of hotness (Sit down, you! Wait for people to tell you’re hot before claiming it upon yourself! LOL!).
Time to digress a bit. I’m enjoying myself writing this, thus I’m beginning to litter this piece with many parenthetical clauses. Don’t enjoy reading? Fine. What’s your business reading on then? Oh, but how rude of me. Please go on reading and tell me your thoughts if ever you have been a just a passerby before. A horse with no name, er, a man with no name, I mean (Don’t you just love that song by America? Lala la lala, lalala la la!).
Back on earth… to the discussion, I mean… (Let me regain my composure a while).
More seriously, a passerby comes and goes. He/she does not bear grudges. He/she does not carry your memory and sulk or curse each time he / she remembers you. He/she leaves you in peace. He/she does not use you for personal gains. He/she does not lie to your face. He/she does not take your heart and break it into pieces and leave you to die. No! Not like other people we might know, who have a name and who have received valuing from us. A passerby just passes. By; not on (Although, eventually, we all pass on).
Come to think of it, a passerby can be you and me. It has happened that a passerby is you. And me! On your way to work. To school. Church. The mall. Aren’t we all passersby to others as well? Out in the world, aren’t we all the same? Well? Aren’t we? To someone else’s perspective, alas, to every other one else’s perspective, we are (just) a(nother) passerby! One of the many nameless faces that paint the streets with a random color. Or two. Let me go philosophical for a sec. Think about this: there are millions upon millions of “nobodys” at any given moment. If so, is a passerby really a nobody?
It changes the story, doesn’t it? When we become the passerby, I mean. We begin to welcome the hidden facets of truth that are we take for granted when we are not the passerby. If we were the passerby, will we not wish that our stories be heard before someone else says “he looks haggard”, “she’s like a whore”, “oh, I love those shoes”, or “I wish I had her life”. I mean, come on, a person who looks haggard might have attended a wake of a dearly beloved and in that person’s grief, his physical appearance is of last importance. A woman who might look like a whore may just have a poor fashion sense or maybe purposefully, she wants to look like a whore. For a play. Perhaps. Is it not plausible? Well? Is it? Or if you envy the shoes of another and then find out that actually the person’s feet are killing her, will you still continue to envy. Well? (You know what I would ask next). And never ever end up wishing you had another person’s life. That is just too much to ask. Too much. Have you heard of the line which goes, “there’s more than meets the eye”? There’s truth in that. What looks to be charmed life might just be the tip of the iceberg. What if that person’s life were more problematic than you imagine? And you happened (whether plausible or not) to rub on a genie’s lamp and your wish is granted before you know what hit you. What then?
All I am saying is a passerby is a human person. With human dignity. With freedom. And knowledge. And body. And soul. A passerby has a story. A passerby has feelings. A passerby has value. A passerby is a book in the library that is earth. You’ll never know what you’re gonna get (Oh, wait, that’s a box of chocolates, said Forrest, Forrest Gump). There are lots of books in our planet library. We go through the halls in search for particular volumes, editions, authors, topics, and disregard the rest. That is not to say they are not worth anything. And you know what they say about books. Don’t judge them by their cover. Just like you and me, they don’t take too kindly of being judged, too. If books ever had feelings, too.
There are pleasant happenstances in life. One of them might just be bumping to that passerby meant for us. For a lifetime.
Have you watched the film “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”?
Here’s what I feel Mr. Smith will say, if he were a romantic, to Mrs. Smith:
How hard is it to admit the truth to someone who loves you absolutely,
to someone who will not bear grudges against you,
and will accept you with open arms when you decide to come home,
and love you as you accept your faults and not hold them against you,
when all you have to do is admit all you’ve done?
Enough defiance for it will bring you nowhere,
for I know more than you give me credit for.
I love you. And to me, that’s all that counts, if you love me too.
She had possessed the pow’r of dreams;
controlled reality, so it seems,
who fed the One will all the lies
presumed her safety in disguise.
To quell all doubts was then forgot,
but laughed, they did, their cheating lot
with greed and blatant disregard
of punishment and of reward.
Go, bind the truth and hide away
yet be unveiled by light of day;
and then be found, and all be known
it total nakedness be shown.
then churn more fabricated things -
behold the emptiness that brings!
Begin to flail and to save face,
to sink no further in disgrace.
She spins the story, one last chance
to play the tune of her own dance,
and to incessantly mention
that she loved without reservation.
Thus, walks away, no turning back
believing that she never lacked;
and then to wear the frozen smile
of someone ever in denial.
“What’s the matter Lazarus? Cat got your tongue?” Magdalene said as she began pulling her pantyhose off. She was just in her underwear already.
He barely managed to swallow the spittle that got caught in his throat.
It made her laugh as she continued undressing and dropping every article on the floor like the serpent she is. She looked at Lazarus over a delicious shoulder and her piercing gaze egged the novice at love to follow her lead. She had a foot in the tub now. And she was down to her birthday suit now.
Lazarus fumbled his way to where she was. The water was steamy hot. “Does she make it that way?” he thought? “That’s how hot she is?”
Magdalene found Lazarus like she did her last lover. She plucked him out because she knew he would serve a purpose in her grand scheme. Like every one in two foxy women in the world, she wanted the easy life. She wanted to have it all. Fame. Fortune. By any means necessary. The most ready resource to her was her body. That, and brains enough to hatch her plan and see it through. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but she was most efficient at getting the job done. And she knew damn well she was irresistible! At times she laughs to herself when she feels lusting over her own naked reflection.
Lazarus was from the same office where Magdalene worked as a secretary to the big wig. He worked as a scientist in that research facility. He was the next big thing. Magdalene had heard of his breakthrough discovery and, more importantly, of the megabucks this clueless scientist will net from it. She pounced on him before anyone else could. All she had to do was walk up to him and put a leash on his neck.
He was handsome, but did not know it. His low self-image has blinded him to the fact that he was good-looking.
“A little bit of makeover will do wonders for my latest cash cow!” she laughed devilishly to herself. “I got a Porsche from the last one. I wonder if I get that beachside villa with this one.” She was lying in the tub now and water was up to her cleavage. Lazarus was standing in humorous stupor.
“Nanotechnology, is it?” she inquired for the nth time of the field Lazarus won his Nobel from that day. “Well, who would have thought we’d earn megabucks from doing small things? Get in the tub, you. Let’s celebrate.”
He just stood there unable to digest what was going on. He was good with science, but he never knew how to calculate women.
She stood up to flick upwards on Lazarus’ lips and she planted a quick wet one. Chapped.
His eyes grew wide at what he beheld before him. Smooth, Semitic, sun-kissed skin, supple breasts, and perked up nipples pointing directly at him. Soap bubbles worshipped her body as they dripped downwards.
Magdalene looked at him from head to foot and caught sight of his manhood pointing back at her. She laughed and was not able to resist thinking it was cute. She stepped out of the tub to stand beside Lazarus and held both his shoulders. She lightly gave him a jerk forward. His feet complied as they got him into the tub, one after the other.
He noticed ten notches at the head-end of the tub. He had to ask. “Why are there notches on your tub?” he inquired.
“Oh, those? I like filing my nails here in this tub. That’s the part where I put my feet up. I hit those spots when I get into the mood of filing, if you know what I mean,” she lied. The besotted scientist didn’t have a clue.
Lazarus tried to avoid the notches because he noticed they had sharp edges. He rested his neck neatly on the lip of the tub, barely avoiding the notches. Magdalene got into the tub after him. She held on to his chest and pushed him up the tub. He was almost sitting up against his end of the tub now. Magdalene straddled him and rocked back and forth.
There was a red hint in the water now – it was blood. Each thrust sliced deeper on Lazarus’ left shoulder. When those wounds heal, they will surely leave scars. These made Magdalene smile. She gyrated with more gusto. She did not lust for blood. She lusted for power and riches. These made her lust for pleasure even more.
“Do you want me?” was her question, more theatric than rhetoric.
“I love you, Magdalene!” was his beguiled response.
It was enough for her.
The pleasure that Lazarus felt made him oblivious of the water that had just turned red with his blood.
She broke into a muted laugh as she saw utter pleasure written on Lazarus’ face.
“I got you now!” she thought surely to herself as she smelled blood. And she mindlessly continued to rock back and forth on top of him. Her thoughts trailed to her greater scheme of things. She flashed a smile that summed up all the mischief and deceit known to humankind. She knew she had just marked her new man: husband number ten!
Every night, this person lies beside a wall. The bed pushed against it. It was a bed not so big, thus the person was always lying beside the wall.
“I wish the one I love were beside me. I miss that person,” was the initial complaint, as the night began. “Is it going to be another sleepless one?” was the opening inquiry. A barrage of complaints and questions followed like a rushing stream from a brilliant orator before a jury and judge. All falling to deaf ears. All deaf but one: the speaker. What’s the point? Perhaps, steam was just being blown off. Therapeutic.
Perhaps, it was what was needed. Therapy. All the lonesome talking can get into the head sometimes. And a shrink can do the trick sometimes. Sometimes. That is if there was ever reliance to be given to shrinks. Greedy pricks!
The person had no choice but talk to the wall. Stories shared. Complaints brought up. Happy thoughts imparted. There could have been beautiful exchanges nightly, but it was a wall being talked to. There would not be any response to be expected. And naturally so. It was a wall being talked to.
Good thing pillows were invented. To hold. To hug. To lay heads on. To punch. To cry on. An all-encompassing purpose fulfilling the need for touch. Pillows do all those without complain. And blankets, too, help out. To wrap completely. Better than a person does sometimes, if warmth were all that’s needed. Sometimes. Perhaps. What comfort in the lifeless. From the pillow and the blanket. And the bed, of course.
Ah, but there had been beautiful exchanges in that bed when the beloved was still around. Beautiful conversations stretched. Beautiful dreams built. Beautiful moments shared. All in intimacy and in the privacy of that bed. It hadn’t always been pushed against the wall. There used to be life beside the person. It was gone now. There would not be a chance of knowing why now. The beloved had gone. Where and when cannot be answered either. The nostalgia immediately dispatched by reality.
The waking hour had been interspersed by dreams. Time for sleeping, actually, rather than waking. Sleeping in fragments? There was no way of telling for sure. It all brewed in darkness, silently stirred with REM. When the eyes are open in the cover of darkness, are they still closed? A deep breath in and out.
A hand was run once through the wall. “Smooth and cold. Perfect!” the person called out sarcastically. “Just what I need during this cold, dreary weather.” “Mmmhmmhmmhmmhmm!” was the silenced malevolent laughter conclusively amused to the irony. “Fight fire with fire!” was sung to the tune of Cardigans and Tom Jones song. The voice was raised a little louder now. Eyes sharp in the dark and ears just as sensitive. Hairs stand on end. Comfortably relaxed, beginning to shimmy. How attractive it was to burst into flames then. “Fighting fire with fiiiiiiiiiirrre!”
An exasperated exhale ensued. “Enough already! I’m woken again by your ruckus. It’s late. Go back to sleep, you asshole!” exclaimed the wall.
Cleaning up, getting organized
to put things in order;
wanting improvement for Better.
Slowly and surely
but not without snags;
two paces forward, one step back.
Yet, never to run from slow progression,
never to quench the smoldering wick.
The tiniest of flickers
can grow to the most voracious of fires.
Keeping together to help ignite
like a lick of flame and a torrent of fuel - to burn!
Bury the rotting and drop the excess baggage.
Take the trash out but cycle the good again.
What is positive is worth keeping, and the trouble doing so.
What is negative is not given the slightest of thought.
