Tuesday, August 27, 2013

ZEN OF A FAILING STAR



AN UNCOMMON MAN
Be of good cheer in ignorance
to the plight of the living
as your steps tread upon the remnants
of dead men’s thoughts used to pave your path.

Think not of where you tread
or
whom you block through blindness to all but self.
The paved path is full of thought and intentions
of them wanting a better world
only to find that time overtook any vision of life
different than this risen one
under a self-declared moon
greedy for eating the smaller lights
of night’s life.

It is nothing more than a quick turn of time’s ankle
to extinguish a faint glimmer of a common life;
nothing more than a sprinkle of oil or water
to quell the rising dust of the dead
who had nurtured knowledge
of had been common before.

I would that I were a common man.
A human traveler not afraid
to let someone in line ahead of me,
not easily angered when confronted by anger in another,
able to step back and hold a door open for a stranger,
easy to exchange pleasant conversations with the unknown,
able to express my feeling simply with words thank you or please,
think thoughts and ideas freely without reservation of persecution.

I would that I had not become an uncommon human.

C() M Durfee
8/27/13

20 comments:

  1. I'm an uncommon human ... smiling and chatting and helping out ... all the time ... but I'm also the world's biggest liar ... because inside I cry ...

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    1. I am sorry with you meowmomma, but I am also glad you understand and at least attempt what should be common courtesies.

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  2. your steps tread upon the remnants
    of dead men’s thoughts used to pave your path

    sobering to think on, those that dies to make the way, your immediate follow of that with us being stuck on ourselves...ugh...truth...i think a lot of what you bring out in the end as well is all about being human....

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    1. Brian is not our general public current philosophy of self before all others become pervasive? Maybe because we have sped up time through digitization, but prior to this "gilded age" we learned from philosophers taking the work of another who came before and stretched the road a bit more. Sadly yes the end is all about being common human in this era.

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  3. What is a human but a collection of wants. To be an uncommon human would be not to want, I suppose.

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    1. Charles I believe that being human is more a collection of needs. But we have come to a place where we are forced to fight each other or kill to have our needs met. I have needs that i can not have filled by fighting for them, I need for courtesy and thoughts of how ones actions affect others before committing them. A need unfulfilled leads not to a desire or want but simply giving up.

      There is no thing I want except maybe to go off planet, leave this collective society to its own destruction by greed and callousness.

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  4. I am trying to get rid of my belongings and keep just the bare essentials. The bare essentials now seem a lot.

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    1. Munir--A spare unencumbered life is good, very good, but can you find a way to drop your emotional baggage that holds you back?

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  5. What's up, this weekend is nice in favor of me, as this time i am reading this great informative paragraph here at my home.

    Here is my website ... Pregnant Symptoms

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  6. Oh, those intentions...people swear by them...this one resonates, Mark. I think, these days, to be uncommon is a good thing.

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    1. Talon, EXACTLY! Look at most other people and do the opposite and you'll find yourself not only unique but also feeling good because common courtesy has become natural.

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  7. just give me the last 9 lines of this poem. I think that is all that's needed. Point well made and point well taken.

    love
    kj

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  8. These sentiments seem somehow Canadian, though we are today in the slippery grip of Oil Can Harry. Our version of a Republican, I suppose.

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    1. Ivan, I think my philosophy of life has been affected by all the time I spent in Canada and understanding how it is not the true 51st state. But yes rudeness and self centered nationalism seems to be picking up across the border.

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  9. Mark-the stuff I carry in my head is harder to unload than all my shoes and purses. Oh, and hats! xo

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So Walking Man I was thinking...