Candor's Price

Silhouettes of things

I'd wished to say

float above the page

and drift away; 

twilight weeps, wind shivers,

and the damp will stay

while eye grasps for the last

splash of bright left by day . . .

as I await that strange burn

in the depths when pride pays

for author's confessions

of blues, blacks, and grays.   

The Beggar and The Privileged

The terror of new day,

laced with abandonment,

hope burned to a crisp,

my outstretched hand

just another piece of junk --

I try to rise

with the sun.  

The world lies,

giving a flush of welcome 

and then,

the boot --

all the crueler for memory of

first sweetness. 

So, before you speak to me

of the lofty and the spiritual,

please be sure that it was not

the heel of your boot

which already smashed

my hand.

No Mixing

There I was, approaching them

from a level deemed lower,

offering my hand

as a token of goodwill,

all but begging,

"May I?  May I please

join you?"

And they slapped down my hand

as impertinent.

Panorama

A long, long time it took me

to realize I'd permitted

"zealous" souls

to shrink my own.

A Vehement Loneliness

Arrogance, it would seem,

is a most agonizing death

rehearsed vehemently during life.

Let no man's epitaph be:

"Died fanatically preserving pride,

with mortal wounds to the left and right hemispheres

of disdain and conceit,

following a martyrdom of self-imposed isolation

from all lesser men."

Jewel Underfoot

Discomfort takes its stand,

crying out to complain,

but not from pain.

Pain knows better than to

shake its fist and sulk --

as do those whose noses

have never scraped the ground.

If pain should resort to such trifles,

they would be base imitations,

the weight of such lies

casting it down once again.

And how tragic to stamp one's feet

in a pretender's rebellion,

only to realize later

that pain, humbling and true,

had left a precious jewel in its wake,

now crushed

underfoot.