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Open Poetry #44
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What we Settle For
| Open Poetry #44 |
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What we Settle For |
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WindWalker Senior Member
since 2001-10-12
Posts 1218 |
It's there - for all to see were they not blind: it doesn't work - but no one can see it; not even you, not until it collapses in your lap: when the hopes and dreams shatter as glass when a rock is thrown and children run laughing while another screams inside a dark house. Isn't it amazing what we settle for? What we convince ourselves of? There is the tried and true and failed - Oh yes, failed, utterly failed - but what can one do? It's all there is, isn't it? We are born into society - a pattern set in cement - and even if we notice (too late) the cement is cracked and crumbling no one is pouring fresh stuff down here. Let's see, what are the options for the budding human's dreams? There's church - some kind of religion so you can get hooked on God - the Great One who's more silent than the grave; family - parents and siblings and fights followed by separation and divorce and relocation to another school. There's government - you register to pay everyday of your life and beyond; school - education - to make you fit in and teach you to walk with eyes wide shut. There's work - you have to make money -- it's what makes it all go round and down. There's repetition: your own family -- "The Home Environment" (translate please) -- certainly, read: the confining straights of marriage and kids and responsibilities no one ever taught -- you fly by the seat of your pants and you remain afloat - maybe - or you lose and fall and lose again. And at that point there's jail -- you had your good times they brought you too low and you couldn't climb out so they scoop you off the sidewalk, in cuffs you watch your shiny stolen car burn inside the basement of a house and an ambulance screams away. Stop, you say, stop already -- it's not that bad, not for most -- and sadly I have to agree, it is not: most accept the middle road, the common ground. They warm the pews, fill the voting booths, sit at desks half asleep and they commute, commute, commute, commute - like the beat of a train's steel wheels on a badly laid track -- I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go to the job and back from the job, to and fro, and it all becomes the same, blurred, wasted -- somehow mixed with forgotten dreams remembered once or twice at a party. And hope, what happened to hope? Well, it's still there, somewhere -- in the shoe closet, in the doghouse the baby's crib or the barbecue. Sometimes it's in the hot tub and sometimes in a boat or swimming pool. Or a promotion for him. Mostly it's in maxed-out loans and mortgages -- All just enough to stave off the divorce, barely enough. Dreams and hopes become memories written on a note lying limp between the fingers of the deceased and the coffin's lid is shut for the last commute: the roll down hell's door into the furnace. Amen. "And the people shall bow and say, 'Amen' together then shall they depart from this place to eat and drink, and they shall continue... continue... continue... and whatever they may have learned here shall be wiped from their memory." That is the real story. (I have gone back to using my old username because I just found my old password. Just thought I would let you all know.) |
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| © Copyright 2009 Sharran WindWalker - All Rights Reserved | |||
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
sometimes... there's grace.  |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
WindWalker ~~ you are in my mind today. M |
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passing shadows Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577displaced |
this...well, it got me... isn't it amazing what we settle for indeed lots of things in this that I can relate to well |
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Mark Bohannan Member Rara Avis
since 2000-06-21
Posts 7269In the winds of Cherokee song |
Life has a way of challenging us and sometimes it is harder to keep the positive attitude but in the end it does make the successes much more rewarding. Enjoyed very much. |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
This write is so (sadly) accurate (and excellent) that it, of course, needs no 'commentary' from me! ... I will simply 'hi-lite' the following: "most accept the middle road, the common ground. They warm the pews, fill the voting booths, sit at desks half asleep and they commute, commute, commute, commute - like the beat of a train's steel wheels on a badly laid track -- " [well, that about 'covers it' for me!]... like a slight modification of the old song lyrics: "Saint Peter don't ya call me, 'cause I can't go: I owe my soul to the ... 'corporate world' (amid this "Runaway American Dream)!" MOST serious and long-sustained applause for this 'penning' |
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Earth Angel Member Empyrean
since 2002-08-27
Posts 40215Realms of Light |
Sad to say, 'tis far too often the "real story" ~ and you told it exceptionally well. You are quite the writer, One Who Walks With the Wind! You see and think and do ~ while so many merely exist.  EA [This message has been edited by Earth Angel (02-16-2009 03:04 PM).] |
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Honeybunch Member Rara Avis
since 2001-12-29
Posts 7115South Africa |
WW - It is indeed the "real story" and so we need to make our own stories even if it's just inside where we silently (sometimes) love and appreciate so much that we see around us. Indeed an excellent expose of life in general and although a lot of us go through the ritual, we can think differently and see things from another perspective if we wish to. Hopes and dreams - yes, they do shatter but perhaps that's to teach us a thing or two about living and loving in the here and now. We are part of nature and so are changing constantly. Some seeds sprout early, others late and some never do which means that life is pretty much going to carry on the way it is and has done. We marry, divorce, fight with our siblings, etc. etc. and through it all manage to stay reasonably sane. Now doesn't that say something about us, about life, and about the indomitable spirit of man? I think there's a part of us that just want to "experience" and "feel" and the feeling of a shattered dream can be most intense. Perhaps it's the good and the bad that makes us know we lived. I'm tired so am probably talking nonsense. My apologies. Thank you for another thought provoking write. Helen |
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vandana
since 1999-10-22
Posts 10463USA |
enjoyed |
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Robert E. Jordan Member Rara Avis
since 2008-01-25
Posts 8541Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Yo WindWalker, This is a long and kinda slow read. Rereading it, I got a kick out of it. Complain complain complain! Bobby [This message has been edited by Robert E. Jordan (02-16-2009 09:57 PM).] |
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Suncleaver Member
since 2009-01-18
Posts 481Stafford England |
Sad to say that the bitter story and delusions of mediocrity are often all we get. But there's always love. We all get that one chance to wash the grey of our souls away. Never sigh for a better world, it's already composed, played and told. |
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