Linda's Literary Home

Like a Shadow

Image:  Created by Gemini inspired by the poem
Image: Created by Gemini inspired by the poem

Like a Shadow

Shall I offer some well-etched question?
What well-defined answer would you accept?
Questions, like clouds shrouding the moon—
Live in your ego like the dust of hooves
Coating and smiting your blotched being.

Who are you to finger my history?
You, who remember nothing but crabs
And jinxed fixes in the noon brain—
Who, indeed, is your guide?
Would you follow if you had a good one?

You can scoff but the world will wait
Until your karma rings your skin
And pushes your mental kinks
Into the abyss of drowning mold—
Only then may you begin to laugh.

On the other hand—if the first hand can abide—
You may find peace in your self-induced dementia.
No one will question your state of mind
When you begin to sputter lies debunked by historians
Who prove the real has outlasted the fake.

The human shame that attaches to the weak
Will not save you from yourself.
Finding and clutching, running and falling,
Delusion renders fools of us all, even as we suffer
From falsehoods delivered by the powerful.

The pockets of rich administrators limned with gold
Will not suffice in the blue-black rhythm of maya.
But you will not listen to any voice in the red moonlight
Where spirit reigns but remains hidden by evil—
You chose a tangled path, and it is will strangle you.

Listening to frogs by the swamp may give some relief
From certain evil acts, but you cannot hear them
Thus you pretend they do not sing, that their chorus,
Simply dreams in the land of silk and fleece.
You may find that thorns await in the thicket.

I do not know anything about the turtles you have killed.
But I am sure they exist in the afterlife like a shadow.

Comments

Good faith questions and comments welcome!