Monday, February 16, 2015

GOING, GOING, GO...



TRUTH OF EQUALITY
A man who fights his hatreds
is often
knuckled down under the blows
of his
knowing he is no better than another.

Equality simply does not sit easily
in the heart of men;
the thought sits stone like in the belly
of them who need
to feel they’ve superior creed, belief or color.

Few are they that see
there is no one better than another;
them that roam marble halls
posturing political power are no different
than them asleep in dumpsters.

© M Durfee
2.16.2015




I HAVE NO TEARS LEFTNOTHING TO LEFT TO HAVE

I was climbing down a mountain in my dreams, I saw a generation’s life on display as I lowered my way down slowly to the ground. There were things that had been, that I’d seen, where I’d gone that had completely stripped the lessons learned by me as I made my ascent to what I thought was the peak, the summit; a peak humanity, love, compassion. Once I stood atop that heap, a fool called me, whispered “there’s more.” Soon I saw I had come nowhere near the top but wanted to climb no more to get to a higher spot. Before I began my descent away from what was beyond me still, I looked across the valley floor to see a vast track through deeply cut depth of devastation left behind that only I and the dead could see. All the burned churned spurned desolate destroyed once lush life left devastated by all born in times same as I.

Others not known by me had been climbing also, to those higher places I never needed to know. Those who learned the value of greed. Working their way to power, up that to mountain’s true top stepping on bodies piton crucified to the face of granite, grabbing tightly generations old neck wrapped ropes bound around them pinned to the mountain wall for a steady sight on everything the high climbers wanted to control. The needs of a few knowing that the less who took more, others would lose their love, their life, and condemn their soul in desire for a place they could never reach; for there is very little room at the mountains peak. Foolish man, who never finds satisfaction in standing still in a place where he is complete they are them that find that pike staking them to the granite face.

I woke from the dream and knew there was little I could do, or maybe even less I wanted to, for my days are winding down same as my life is grinding down against a stone of futile resistance of insistence that fairness is a right way, a good way to play in this life, here in this mortal ever dying place. Words once had a power that money could not touch but now words are used to deceive, to make fools believe that some benevolent something or other will meet all their earthly needs if they keep on earning for them above, are steady in trying for that already crowded peak somehow or another their voice will speak, to say “I too have finally found my way, by climbing on the bodies of the dead I now have more than enough gold. It feels good to finally be bought instead of sold.”

© M Durfee
2.15.2015



14 comments:

  1. i dont know that equality is the goal...are we ever truly equal? can we be? i think we can be equal in some things...concepts really and attitudes, but i think if we can appreciate the good, the skills each have and work toward equality in how we are treated and opportunity to live...

    the second is sad a bit...maybe it is at the thought of you winding down...and the bastardization of words...of twisting them into weapons and tools to kill/destroy....being bought would mean that someone wants us at least...that maybe we were more than a commodity...and honestly chosen....

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    1. Brian the last part of your first statement is a goal. But do we really have the capacity to think of a janitor in the same manner and give them the same status as we do an engineer? What if the engineer truly hates his job and is daily weighed down by it but the janitor is perfectly content in his. We still praise the engineer as accomplished and the janitor is looked down on even though without their work nothing the engineer designed would ever get cleaned. When 10% earns more than 50% of the wages and wealth in America there can be no equality, and to be bought or sold either is at great cost because humanity is not a commodity like grain or oil. Yet so many will offer themselves for sale to get as close to that peak as possible as though money will solve problems. And those who get unknowingly sold are them who are the ones winding up paying the debts owed by them doing the buying. "When the power of love is greater than the love of power then the world will have peace"--Jimi Hendrix

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  2. I like the first poem and am pondering the dream--so many vivid images and a life worn down by the futility of it all.

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    1. I think I need to get out more Jeff, no life is entirely futile but mine certainly seems to be headed there.

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  3. Yep, I'd rather not be equal. Sometimes those dumpster dudes are waaaay cooler than the politico types.

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    1. I hear you Alice, journalists, lawyers and politicians seriously have place in the inner depths of the inferno--a long way out for them that perpetuate the current myths of class and riches.

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  4. ... had a PTSD patient in a while ago ... he was dump truck driver ... and he dumped and almost squished and killed a squatter ... Note to self: Get your food, but then get out of da garbage container ...

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    1. I'd have to move to get out of the dumpster meowmomma. PTSD is an interesting concept, I know it is a diagnosed illness but at some point it stopped being my reason for being me and the the way I think.

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  5. I struggle with the issues in that first poem as well. how do I help others when I suffer the same weaknesses.

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    1. Personally Charles I think that feelings of equality have to do with how we measure our successes. I have had far more success at the things I have turned my hand to but when I think about my life and being I don't count them as much of anything. In this area of the country it is all about race and wealth. Most people say because of my race I could have had more wealth, but I live among the poorest people in the area and i still can't count myself as any better than them but I do sneer at them who tell me I let my class down. I just don't know and to be honest i am rather tired of trying to measure myself against the expectations of others, regardless of what those expectations are. That is the hard part of being what I am, seeing things as they are before someone throws the sugar on it.

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  6. You are our Hieronymus Bosch. The view back over a generation is dizzying!



    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral
    <3

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    1. I kind of like that comparison Cloudia, especially because other than his work so little is known about him.

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  7. I know that as a species we are all the same. There are many great equalizers for humans--death is the ultimate one. Sadly, ego seems to be what eventually separates us and what drives us to lust for money and power. I know that I am equal to anyone else when all the wealth and power and illness is stripped away. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are better, but we aren't.

    As far as your being on the way out--I know we all are. But I don't like to think about it.

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  8. Mark-Syd is right. Death is the great equalizer. I spend most days trying to 'grab my happy'. xo

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So Walking Man I was thinking...