Fading Oblivion

I watch them fade

Back into the distance

Back to where they probably came from

Back to where they belong

Satellites drifting

Into their clusters

Into their likeness

Into oblivion…

And I’m not sorry, and I’m not sad

Because it’s been so long now that it’s felt this way

That I couldn’t begin to pretend to feel bad

And I'm reminded of Whitman

Not to mock them for their humanity

But I'm literally disgusted by the hypocrisy

The impotent façade of positivity

Forgetting the balance of both

Yes, even the negativity

You who claim to understand karma

You who claim ‘allergy’ to drama

You’ve created a safe haven, a nest

A dream getaway for today, at best

You’ve become but a shadow

Of all you once were

A child, full of breath, and alive

With passion, with heart

Yes, one who often bled

But one who always seemed to understand

That therein was the art

And only I have watched you

Through the linear and non-linear years

Putting in all that valid work

Trying so hard… just to get here…

Your medicines, your years of therapy

Your religion and your science

This brood to which you bachelor

This mask to which you’ve mastered

This divinity to which you’ve doctored

Show me one person, just one person

That it’s truly healed

Not helped, but healed…

Not worshipping the supposed anecdotes and trials

Nor left addicted to its candy, the ever-welcoming denial

Because the true healing happens

Only in the subconscious mind

Inside the deepest of emotional tides

But your definition of help is relative

And your meds, so much more than contraceptive

Crutches: the toolbox, the carpenter, and the cross

Useful ways to explain the unwanted away

Sacrificing so much beauty

As acceptable loss

You’ve forgotten so much of who you truly are

Forgotten the passion, the truth, the heart

Lost even your ability to write

Believing to your soul

In the methods, the might

That they actually possessed the power

To make everything alright

That this trusted wand was yours to wield

To abolish all of that deep-rooted fear

To make each moment of doubt, the most

But ‘-did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?

And what have you found?
Yeah, the same old fears…

…wish you were here…-’ (pf)

And as it suits you, I can take the blame

The belief demolitionist is a mask I wear

With pride, not with shame

I tear it all down like the beast I am

Because that’s what I do

It’s what I’ve been gifted & able to do

And yes, I choose to enjoy it as much as I can

But you can call me by name

Because I accept my nature

My failures and strengths, the same

I don't hurt people for fun

I shoot fire in attempts to wake them

Often yes, by tearing them down

Not out of some writhing angst

But from this place, is love

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Better

To do better…

To be better…

Where do these ideas come from?

Self-congratulatory visions of utopia…

Because one can always do better

In the eyes of a world

That ignores

What it means

To live with
Heart!

Sitting around all day

Making 2cent analysis

About everyone you know

At the end of that day

All you’ll really know

For sure

Is that you wasted the day...

And all your little diagnosis’s

Are only distractions

From what you actually need to deal with

…Your fear

…Your shame

…Your regret

All the things you don’t want to see

The answers you feel

But turn out anyway

Because, to you

There’s no answer to your dilemma

But only because the answer that’s come

Isn't valid to you

Peer-driven desires

To reconcile things in life

That are contradictory

Or at least, appear to be

All so you can have

The things

You think

You want
But that’s not going to happen

And when you finally realize that

You’ll try

You’ll try to change the world around you

By changing

Or trying to change

The people around you

But that’s not going to happen either

What you need to do

Is open your eyes

To what you don’t want to see

This muted witness to its own life

Afraid

Even when it pretends

It isn’t

Afraid of getting to that point

Where it can admit

That you can never truly know anyone

And that you currently

Don’t

To admit being

Alone

Its this fear

That makes someone filled with regret

Attempt to fill their thoughts

With faith

In religious promises

Of the afterlife

…Not another life

But the afterlife…

Because they don’t want another life

They want rewards,

…Gifts for their 'sacrifices'

Not another life

To take what’s been learned onward

They don’t want to take it with them

When they go

Why?

Because they’ve wasted this life

Doing better…

Or trying to

And being better…

Or trying to

Placing their faith in integrity

All their actions filled with integrity

And every righteous choice made

Based upon that same integrity

Not from the dreams that screamed

From deep within their hearts

Too many of us believe in advice

A word all too often

Misinterpreted as wisdom

Advice that sounds righteous, utopian

Or filled with integrity

But the mask is pretentious, at best

Hiding the fact

That all it’s ever served to do
Was to help someone

Who’d long since forgotten how to live with heart

Cope with regret

As they were bleeding out whatever worth was left

From their aging bodies

And their saddened souls

So please

Don’t give advice

Or at least

Don’t ever give me advice

On how to be ‘better’

Or about being ‘better’

Do me the favor

Of only giving me advice

That’s actually

Made you inspired

That’s actually

Kept your heart

Like that of a child’s

Alive!

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Work

They open the doors

They take care of us

They introduce us to

Others like us

They pick up the pieces

The things we choose not to do

Not to take part in

Not to indulge in

Not to waste

Our time with

And for this

We allow it

But not that alone

It’s from them that we get

The candy we want

The beauty that is beyond us

The taste of skin

Of sex

Of success

The shiny toys

We’ve always lacked

The ones we never felt worthy of

All the missing pieces

But time folds

And not in our favor

We fall to sleep

Eternally

And in our wake

They’re left to tell our stories

Through the veils of their perceptions

And those perceptions

Through the veil of their own worth

And so they tell the story

Accentuating each moment

Where credit can be theirs

Finding someway towards

Their own worth in yours

You are dead

Immortalized in some documentary

Or some television hour

Tainted by their vision

Of their own 15 minutes

Of worth

But it’s your worth

Your fame

And they forget that

It was your vision

All along

Long before

They’d come along

Nothing is free in this world

And I guess

We have to remember

All

That is truly worthy

Is our work

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Tools

It’s a complicated way to be

Mainly, me

Torn between two ways of being

Fitting in

And not

Living two lives

What I should be doing

And all the other things

I should be doing

One born of responsibility

And the other

Born of intuitive seeds

In not making choices

The choices are still being made

Time is a wastin

But that’s not scary enough

To make the most of us

Move

Fear is a powerful tool

But whose hands weild it in your life

You?

Or the fear itself?

Tools are all we need

In order to see

Just a little bit

Differently

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn