With Apologies to Plato
August 31, 2014
“In every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us whither they will; one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers.”
– Socrates (Phaedrus Dialogues)
He said:
Come with me tonight, let us dance under the crystal moon
The air is clear and flowers in bloom
For nothing can change my love, it is just for you.
I love you clearly, I love you true.
No thought, no word and no reason, let them not sully our time
The days are shortening, I don’t wish them to fly by.
Don’t ask why or what or when.
Just hold my heart, it’s yours to the end.
She said:
It is all very well, these words you say
But that’s all they are, nothing stays the same.
To laugh and dance is all good and true
But the music will stop and so will you.
Think of all the times that will test your heart
Reason alone not to get too far.
Let us sit and think if this should be
She looked up, no more was he seen.
Insomnia / Jet lag
August 29, 2014
I am lying awake,
Shrouded by the black cape of dark,
Eyes alive but unseeing.
Yet I see apparitions.
Ghastly spectres linked and chained
Parading in never ending array,
Ghosts from inner labyrinths,
Deformed and maimed,
Carrying with them the burden of the past and fear of the future
Unsightly and ugly they stream in never ending waves
Till exhaustion rolls over and subdues them
So they can rise in the dark once again.
Manhattan – Day 3
August 28, 2014
Tepid day breaks over the granite
Morning streets carry their forlorn look
Their red eyes blinking in a daze from the morning light
From the avenue behind the sounds of a bus stirring is heard
Indicating that the giant beast is slowly stirring
To Every New Journey
August 23, 2014
Nights are cruel beasts when they stir you awake.
In the dark I have lain awake,
Thinking about myself,
Thinking about the changes that cover my life
I think of the hour of departure,
The time when the day miraculously speeds up
And you grasp at the racing minutes in vain.
I think of the times that have swept by,
The glorious, heady intoxicating potion of nostalgia,
That dulls the pain, the harshness, the bitterness
And soothes with warm sepia glow of mawkish sentiment.
I think of the successes and failures,
The painful loves and the brutal defeats,
The hours spent holding onto dreams already lost,
And the inevitable return to them to seek solace.
I am thinking of friends, of family, of hours of useless mundanity,
Of commonplace occurrences that are suddenly all too important.
I am ignoring and am afraid of
The excitement,
The joy,
The adventure,
The uncertainty of the unknown,
That comes with every new journey.
Atlas
August 17, 2014
Whoever opens an atlas
Is seeing the art of man
Created in blindness and
Heard through song;
The melancholy song
Of home, of hearth,
Lost on the wild seas, adrift
Amongst the snow and sand.
Whoever opens an atlas
Is hearing the march of soldiers,
Hobnailed boots on turf,
The tinkle of pots and pans
And shifty feet of following merchants,
And hearing the sigh of Homer
As he recounts the world of Odysseus
Which is lost to his eyes.
Sydney Spring Morning
August 17, 2014
A grey dawn has washed over the city
Sleek rain has blurred the day’s contours
Uncertain and inconstant, a sly dog circling the table,
The gloom wafts around swallowing towers with it’s hungry maws
Reawakening the desire for sleep