“Imperfection” by Jen Evenhus
what sins have been mine
I’ve done no more and no less
than to be human
wasn’t that the grand design
manifest imperfection
Questions
All posts tagged Questions
“Enigma” by Halina Grzyb
answers aren’t important
it’s the questions that matter
the fashion of wonder
confronting obscurities
only by asking tomorrow
may bodies move forward in time
every footprint of progress
embedded with traces of inquest
compelled by the curious instinct
life at its best is a journey of mind
well and highly imagined
more dreaming than doing
more feeling than knowing
the gleaning of truths
happy cognitive accidents
fruits of impassioned self-inquiry
thinking one’s way unto inklings of
all the most beautiful mysteries
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“Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
“Sunset in the Graveyard of Trees” by Tony Karp
it’s quiet in the shade of years
dreams no more than murmurs
the growl of ego long since spent
the brassy noise of strident youth
transposed to dulcet memories
as time exerts its damping force
the shadows seek reflective thought
within the mind persist mute clicks
a lifetime rolls like reels of film
with captioned silent questions
the wonder now no longer what
or why but rather when and how
it’s quiet in the shade of years
the only sound the setting sun
“Old North Cemetery” by Mary Sarg Murphy
I never felt wind
in a graveyard
flowers stand where they died
unscattered and dried
by the merciless
beating rays of the sun
perhaps stillness
is something ordained
by the stones
somber sentries
permitting no airstream
to move through these
wrought-iron precincts
except for the breathy
expulsion of sighs
that accompany whispers
from underneath
mounded green sod
asking “Why?”
then and now
once and over again
but no answer
has ever stirred
motionless mourning
no reason been heard
by the dutiful stones
or the listening bones
lying under their watch
(originally posted November 2013)
“Products of a Busy Mind”
Mixed Media Painting by Sharon Lynn Williams
From sharonlynnwilliams.blogspot.com
the mind reaches answers
because it can think
but it raises up questions
because it can wonder
“Serenity of Soul”
Painting by Delawer-Omar
From deviantart.com
floating outside and above oneself
watching each movement and motive
a doppelgang presence untethered
objective yet intimate inside-out
shadows of mind melt in sunlight
revealing the shape of each internal
conflict each unconscious choice
love or hate fight or flight to belong
or be gone to believe or deny to
embrace or rebuff trust or doubt
easy questions with difficult answers
here the hovering self draws a bead
from these rarefied clarified heights
maps the mindless mechanics the
arcane emotional math of ambivalent
passions this out-of-self self takes
its airborne perspective informing
identity free from terrestrial taints
not a trace of pedestrian odors
survive in these clean breezy precincts
aeolian free yet invested in how
the man walking below makes his way
through the muck and the mire of life
this affinitve being this airy reflection
man’s own metaphysical touchstone
his de facto ethereal archetype angel
“Three Faces in the Dark” – Artist Unknown
through skeptical wonder
we come on to knowledge
explaining the world
despite all of its
efforts to hide
questions penetrate
darkfall of mystery
see through the night
burn the blackest chintz veils
cunning tapestries
heavily cloak secret truth
behind prurient scenes
mislead hearts who
adore the proscenium arch
with poor sense
of its shadowplay fiction
till inquiry sparks
one small flame
that grows into a torch
catching fire to
fraudulent scenery
dishonest stagecraft
melting the greasepaint
revealing the faces
the naked expressions
of answers exposed now
in wisdom of light
all that’s real
all that’s knowable
fully disclosed in the blaze
that consumes all
theatrical human deceit
From my book Small Noise
“Tinkers Gathering Firewood”
Painting by Nano Reid
From discovery.dho.ie
philosopher poets
dull solitaires stranded
on islands of intellect
languish ignored and
unpolished by patronage
snubbed by academy
dons homely lonely
extravagant thoughts
raised in rhetoric
mortgaged by metaphor
bold interrogatives
verbalize verses acute
with glib secular prayers
for those insights those
clues to the keys to the
locks of creation those
cues to the questions
that even unanswered
ennoble the practice of
living a praiseworthy life
but a one handed sole
minded search for some
soothing amalgam of
penned entertaining
enlightening wisdom
wears hard on the psyche
a smart thinker author
wants partners not rivals
needs readers not muses
if ever his words are
to matter in least as
a good tinker’s damn
Poesy plus Polemics 