Gifted

“Man Thinking”
Painting by Alex Grey
From gestaltreality.com

wanting more than he has
always hungry unsatisfied

flowers and shrubbery and weeds
overcrowding his landscape

a house full of rooms full of stuff
from incessant collecting

material wealth both ambition
and constant frustration

a bottomless belly corporeal
in its seductive desires

possessed of the trappings
endowed by success and yet

nary an object or artifact seems
in the least worth the having

no meaningful friends nor
relationships touched by affection

acquaintances numbering hundreds
up down and across every map

he’s experienced peripatetic
with travel designed to defeat

the uncomfortable stillness
that scares him the mere

passing thought of just settling
in quite alone with himself

stirs a panic his windows must
only look out never in

he must keep on the move
with a focus on everything anything

other than what lies within
those defining interior spaces

where spirit is deeply afflicted
with mortified motives

his heart and soul blackened
by seething self-loathing

a man all the world sees as gifted
a wretch in reality worthy of pity

———————————————————-

“Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.” – Theodore Dreiser