Sunday, March 8, 2015

Love's Labor Lost?


Two war-worn soldiers, exhausted
With bloodshot eyes for lack of sleep
Hands trembling from finger-pointing and trigger-pressing.

They meet at a tavern where the wounded lick their wounds.
They recognise each other from afar,
Uniforms shouting out what they stand for, or what they stood for?

A wry smile, only the defeated could empathise.
A sip of liquor is all they need
To open the dam and flood out pent-up emotions.

Words of emptiness and causes lost
Of being tired and carrying on,
And of giving up and forgiving the giving up.

“I don’t hate you”, said one to the other.
Said the other, “Neither do I”.

“I want freedom”; of soul, and spirit and indigenous shit
Freedom to create one’s own hell-hole, one’s own mess.
Why! It’s liberating to pee on one’s own walls,
Defecate wherever one wants to, fill the nostrils with stench
Of one’s own making. Keep the fire burning. Revolution on a pyre
Of yellowed pages, history, identity, humanity and much more.

“I want freedom too”. To live, breathe, create. To be.
Without asserting, shouting, fighting or victimizing.
Born an animal, an animal I want to be.

Who are we fighting and what for?
A space our own, miles of fields and forest cover,
Or a patch, six feet or lesser still, over layers
Of wisdom, into dirt this cacophony.

Where trees fruit to die giving way to new rush of lives,
Moving on where old roots don’t suffocate, inhibit, amputate
Where change is without regret, unapologetic. Evolution.
In the melee I want to thrive, sweat and deserve this breath.

This futility. Demanding what’s no one’s to give. What’s ours to begin with.
Freedom? First a look into the mirror, a cold, long, stare into the deep.
 To accept, scrutinize, criticize, circumcise the shitty fuss.

 Staring down the barrel, laughing at oneself, begin!

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