Cynicism My judgment as inevitable and merciless as the passage of time, Quickly ages my relationships with women, Causing these fragile unions to wither and eventually die. Leaving only the bitter, acrid taste of loneliness, An unhealthy repast on which I in solitary dine. A Paean of Self Pity A genius derelict, Striving to get by on merit, Betrayed by intelligence, ruined by morality. Completely degraded by hope for a better life, For the teeming billions on Planet Earth. Doomed to wander the empty streets of life, Hounded and pursued by a multitude of negative circumstances, Isolated, poverty stricken and completely alone. Ode to a different drummer I do not wish to partake of your ignorance and confusion, I do not ever wish to be conditioned to tolerate incompetence and inefficiency, Most of all, I must never digest the meal Of immorality and corruption that is on the menu here. Neither must I imbibe the corrosive of contempt, Or fall prey to delusions of grandeur, Or the paranoia that our association breeds. I must continue to subscribe to the delusion of your civility, That you are indeed worthy of consideration and respect, I must cling tenaciously to the doubt your form inspires, But determine never, ever to be like YOU. No Blame to Apportion Reeling from one more rendezvous with pain, Falling again through space alone, My only solace the manifestations of my intelligence. With it I can confront, at last, that monolith From oft repeated, but barely remembered, nightmares. We/I am not guilty; we/I am not evil, just human. There is no blame to apportion, No judgment to hand down, no sentence to serve. Just a journey of discovery to complete, An enterprise and passion forever absorbing and challenging me. Alone Dying of loneliness, with no one to blame, A hawser of insensate fate, become ultimate paradox and consummate irony. At last to be without guilt or shame Yet confronting a sere, brutal reality, The lesson learnt by enduring the flame Of truth must result in my being isolated and endlessly consigned to Coventry. Oh! To be blind again, to be like the rest of the world Intellectually lamed. Anything, anything that would help me escape this agony. Parting Veils of Joy I have at long last quite belatedly become, A beautiful butterfly abounding with love, peace and civility; And begun to benefit from a rapturous existence parting the veils of joy. But I am still not completely immune to the intense pain and suffering, Being experienced by the twisted, determined, tortured hearts populating the ether around me. I cannot avoid awareness of their enfeebled, malicious attempts, To share and dissipate their animus and bitterness by inflicting it on others, Yet my Christian principles create a shield and inviolability Causing this evil miasma to be repelled and rebound Magnifying and increasing exponentially the perpetuator’s agony. So that these lost souls become, The hapless, defenseless victims of their own misdirected and insensate cruelty, Which is both their karma and inevitable manifest destiny, Until they dare to follow my example, to find the moral strength and courage To embark upon their own individual pilgrimage of discovery. Parting Veils of Joy Revisited The world is drifting towards apocalypse around me, Falling apart and seemingly about to shatter into smithereens, I am experiencing poverty, deprivations of every type and intensity, as well as monumental loneliness, Yet simultaneously I exist parting veils of joy. I am experiencing that inner peace and contentment, incongruously and incredibly I am just happy to be alive as I am filled and thrilled with the awareness That I have remained true to my principles and ideals, that despite all that I have endured I have unceasingly and relentlessly told the truth and done what I believe is right. I have not been prompted to compete but interminably sought to cooperate I have renounced coercion and embraced positive reinforcements with all my might, Most daunting has been the exercise in futility of convincing anyone to follow my example and aspire to be free But as I attempt to educate, I am also learning, discovering And accepting that there is no manifest destiny no inevitable happy ending That I exist and must accept that I exist in a milieu of uncertain outcomes and random chance, Even while embracing the challenge to deploy all my will, determination, courage and ingenuity To remain master of my fate, to strike from my psyche the shackles of determinism. I “get” Beauty Some individuals may conclude that I exaggerate when I say that despite being poverty stricken, homeless and experiencing extremes of loneliness, isolation and alienation I exist parting veils of joy; a phrase I encountered in a fantasy novel that described so accurately my personal truth that I embraced it and adopted it as my very own. I want the world of women and men to know that I have become prone and susceptible to beauty, that living guilt free allows this condition and visual, sensual perception to easily penetrate into the deepest recesses of my being. I get beauty from the printed page as the author C.J. Cherryl in his novel “Fortress of Eagles” causes his hero to declaim, “He could be distracted, still, by beauty, by the wonder of a stroke of sunlight.” What this fictional character was experiencing was the spectacle of winter for the first time as with the onset of dawn the rays of the rising sun struck the ice fragilely balanced on the surface of leaves; as this frigid phenomenon hung in the form of icicles from the limbs of trees; as it frosted the earth below; this initial stroke of sunlight causing these manifestations to gaily glisten and sparkle like momentary soon melting and disappearing diamonds. The photograph of the artist Pierre Marie to whom I am now subscribed, that depicts a mother and her infant babe his mouth slipping inches from her nipple, capturing and encapsulating an image of such poignancy that I find it hopelessly captivating and endearing. I perceive dawns and sunsets perennially purpling and enflaming clouds, some dark engorged with moisture and spitting electricity; some light and fluffy white all creating formations, patterns and caricatures of ethereal cosmic splendor. It is these imagoes that I am trying to capture as I write prose and poetry and share with other human beings, these purely joyful essences that constitute in totality for me an inviolable immutable truth and stark actual intense reality of happiness which I have arduously and painfully developed the capacity to internalize. Trust me, I “get” beauty and am able to extract this from the most ordinary and prosaic situations, circumstances, conditions and scenes; and am relentlessly, determinedly and endlessly trying to cause other human beings to foster and develop similar wholly stimulating, inspiring, enervating and validating capacities. William E. VIRTUE
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:58:00 +0000