Beneath the Lid [poem]
The whole world smugly screamly sits
on a keening bed of fears
belied by shrieks of laughter
as comfort thoughts of everafter
trickle through our beards.
Knowing well we’re only dreaming
microseconds from disaster
we strategize to sanitise
the lacework trail of our fragile lives
(and woe betide intruding eyes).
When we were small and underfed
our cries ignored and left for dead
(or so it seemed to us back then)
we kindof died or something did
our souls were seared — capped with a lid.
But way below that rigid top
a seething mass of terror shock
and naked dread indoctrines
every little step upon our path
a reservoir of stored-up wrath.
For wrath is merely fear with teeth
something raging underneath
with muffled cries and strangled tones
our smiles are plastered round dead bones
unless we choose to be fullgrown.
Entertainment, hobbies, work,
distract us from the clues which lurk
below the radar’s honeyed beam.
(But when the dots of pain connect
we’ll strangely find we stand erect).
For some, religion does the trick
Nothing like some spick and span.
The love we failed to get when young
projected slickly from the sky
will quench the need to question why.
Or DopaDrinkaSmoka stuff
will take you through the gates of groove
(maya’s way of travelling smooth)
and mask the black hole’s gape enough
(unvictory’s smirk rear-mirror view).
And so we twirl around the pole
of desert life’s indulgent soul
mistaking wrecks for solid homes
our face above the water groans
our mouth a mere breathing hole.
For diamond shapeness life to be
our present now reality
means seeing beyond illusion’s wall
with needs not made when we were small
to find our calling true free pure.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 