Your Peaceful Existence

Your peaceful existence
Comes in a colorful package that you buy
And you become diffident of
The no-name brands denouncing
The dominant point of view
That war is good, out there.

In your package
Comes educational material
Justifying the building of weapons
Under a veil of good morals and principles.
Even you can shoot and kill
Under the veil.

No child is left behind
All pledge allegiance
All are given the freedom
To shoot and kill
And peace becomes the enemy,
Driven out of the classroom,
Arrested, suppressed.

You pledged never to challenge
The official view.
You pledged never to question
How many are killed in your name.
You pledged never to look
Outside your peaceful existence.

There is no money to be made in peace.
Aspiring peace leaders withdraw,
Threatened of becoming martyrs,
Their words distorted to rekindle the war effort.
War leaders continue to get
Airports, buildings, and freeways named for themselves.
They continue to call peace the enemy.
So, you say, war must be good,
And looking the other way
You return to your peaceful existence.

Self-Portrait, revised

Is this better?

Self-Portrait

Every morning, facing the mirror
You feel like Dorian Gray who saw in his portrait
The old, consumed man he was supposed to be.
You have seen it before,
The image you try to project,
Blending in time, growth, and decay.

Every morning you have a routine
You perform magic
And transform yourself into
What you want to be.

Every morning you select
From a wardrobe blessed by fashion
The clothes that you need
To make you part of your world.

Years spent making yourself up
And today your mask presses
Uncomfortably against your nature.
The leaks in your mind
Wet the plaster
Of your mask, and it crumbles.
You can’t find yourself in a magazine.
The lost identity never was yours.

Today, you start a new portrait
Incorporating strange features from a night filled with dreams.
You need to slow down, to let the colors blend
Allow for experimentation.
Paint
Your true self, one trait at a time,
Sometimes over another you tried and disliked.

You call it, work in progress
Vowing never to finish
Ignoring the critics
Resisting the urge to hide your portrait in the attic,
Because one day you could be Dorian Gray
Discovering your true self
And wanting to tear it with a big knife.

Poetry read at sl4db: Self-Portrait

A new feature of my blog: the poems I wrote for Spotlight for Dust Bunnies Monday nights (see www.sl4db.com). Yes, they usually are first drafts (or first and a half, or even second). One day all the revisions will magically appear.

Self-Portrait

Every morning you face the mirror
And feel like Dorian Gray when he saw his portrait:
The old, consumed man he was supposed to be.
Why is it a shock?
You have seen it before.

Every morning you have a routine
You perform magic
And transform yourself into
What you want to be.
You select from your wardrobe
The clothes that will give you the confidence
You need to face the world.

You spent years making yourself up
And today you want out of your mask.
Your mind is leaking,
And your mask crumbles like wet plaster.
You can’t find yourself in a fashion magazine.
You have lost an identity that never was yours.

You start to paint a new portrait
Incorporating strange features.
You need to slow down
You need to learn, and allow for experimentation.
You paint
Your true self, one trait at a time,
Sometimes over another you tried and didn’t like.

You must ignore the critics
And resist the urge to hide your portrait in the attic,
Because one day you could be Dorian Gray
And want to stab it.

The Daily Grind

In the cavernous food court

Of their office building

The men in gray find their daily food

For the half hour, perhaps a whole hour

They allow for lunch

Between a phone call and the filling of a form

Calculating precisely how long the path is to retirement.

On plastic trays, they put hamburgers or ham sandwiches

The occasional fries also

A bottle, of juice, sliding dangerously

Threatening to spill the whole tray

If not caught by a spasm of hunched shoulders.

From plastic chairs attached to plastic tables

They occupy their tired minds

With a strategic view of a TV on the wall

Playing something they will soon forget.

A man in black, the word SECURITY on his back,

Walks by

Making sure, in his silence

They are happy and undisturbed.

Oh, how they long for retirement

As they adjust mentally their calculation

Glancing at their watches

Dreaming of doing what they want

The enjoyment of the rest of their lives

In the tranquility of a well-furnished living-room

Free to choose from the day’s options

After a late breakfast

Grinning from a coffee mug at the radio’s traffic report.

With those happy thoughts they rise

Empty the plastic trays and pile them up neatly

Walking unhurriedly

To phone calls and the filling of forms.