The ever-rising sun

Reachable to a child

Never too far away

A sun that searches my hidden emotions

As I walk out into its heated grasp

Sunken into unhappiness

And despair

This sun exists to remind me

That another day

Another sadness is born

And my existence

Cannot hide from this warm exposure

 

I can cower in a hovel

Or I can lift my face into the warm light

I look around my surroundings

What once evoked pure happiness

Now sits around me like strewn artifacts

Assembled and contemplated

By family after the death of a love one

 

The fireplace is cold

Books piled up around its wrought iron grate

Lamps leaking dim light

Onto angular patches of wall

Hoping to enlighten art that sit contentedly

In the ambient atmosphere of indifference

 

A white divan between lamps

Offers its neutral comfort

Blankets draped on its shoulders

Cabinets of pressed wood

With stylized reflective glass on its door

Waiting to be opened

To reveal forgotten books

Books purchased and held close

With emotional fervor

Sincere intentions to explore

Now abandoned

Ideals living inside an end table no one explores

 

Books hidden by a fastidious house cleaner

Clearing open spaces of clutter

Expressing puritanical virtues

Minimalism concealing real life

It does quiet the trumpet of intrusive thoughts

And suffocates the raw wires

That spurt electrical charge into monotonous repetition

 

I close the sliding door

Turn down the car noise

Cars like acres of clones

Driving sequentially and regularly

Across the bridge outside

A metronome of air brushing against the glass

Whooshing across the motorway

That spans the lake

Each car an anonymous clone

Dredging up mystique

And individual answers to wealth

Clones in tuxedos

Holding canopied food articles

Discussing what no one wishes to hear

 

I return my attention to my room

I sit in my favorite spot

On my molded couch

With the frozen smart screen

Reflecting the imploring light

The coaxing yellow radiance

Of the sun outside

Pulling me out of myself

Like a flitting fly

Searching between disasters

Pulling me out of myself again

Out of the myriad binding fears

Out of this hostage-seat

That holds me captive

Inside indecision and fragile addictions

 

 

Initiative sometimes pulls me

I apply my mask of spirituality

And mix with like-minded soul mates

Conflicted, we share hopes and ideals

As if they were actually happening

The thrive of the hive

As the collective mind spills over

For others to lap up and swallow

While pride takes a backseat

 

I pretend and listen

I feel an amorphous charge

Where hope becomes

A communal hallucination

Then the delusion becomes personal

The collective turns to love

Of the fantasy

The fantasy that the spiritually charged moment

Piled high upon the gathered suffering souls

The only hope left

That holds the shape of God

This fantasy that lifts self-will away

Can actually be had

And if it can

That is serves to satisfy me