suffering – Opinions Of Eye

Little Signs – The paranoia of betrayal –

“Fear of vikings builds castles.” – Charles Manson

Sitting at the window, you wait for the sound of me

Knowing your betrayal, you nervously wait to see.

Looking in my eyes, you seek for little signs

the lurid knowledge of forbidden times.

Searching through my things for false pretense

believing I’m like you, you’re incensed.

Take your paranoia, your imposed hell

Leave me alone, your really not well.

How is it that, you can steal away

Holding my patient love at bay?

In the end you’ll regret to see

I’ll leave you alone and take care of me.

Also published in Broowaha
Also published in Wingposse

First published in Opinions Of Eye

11242011

It’s A Long Way Back –

“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.“– Hunter S. Thompson

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.“ – Edgar Allan Poe

butterflist

Its a long way back from the edge of life. I knew when I followed that path to the outer limits of my experience, my emotions raw and excited with newness of knowledge and feeling, that the price for this wonder is the journey back. It’s beautiful on the way to that edge, my soul being easily amazed by pleasures which offer no sure guidance and seduce me with their passion. This excitement is the elixir of madness offered by my wayward senses to lure me beyond the wise and sure. I have recognized the most painful of these experiences are the ones that offer extreme pleasures that lead me away from safety. There are many secrets out on that cliff, many of those secrets are taught on the journey back from the precipice. Run to the edge with reckless abandon, gather your pleasures of knowledge and lust, and know, a price will be paid. I’ll see you on our way back…

Also published in Life As A Human Magazine

Also published in Broowaha citizen newspaper

Also listed on Stumbleupon

First Published in Opinionsofeye.com

12022011

Love is a Tyrant

The following is an article by a talented writer, SZU. ” Love’s not a tyrant; lovers are; My heart’s a proof-with its shining scars.” Enjoy.

Recently an active exchange of poetic responses began between a friend and I. He wrote this beautiful one and sent it my way…and that’s how it began

When storms have raged and passed away
Can gentle calm succeed?
I sleep to ease a troubled mind
Sleep is the friend that I need…
With these few words I speak my mind
You in this, a quest will find
My quest is clear…seek it out
Love is a tyrant…when in doubt

I got an instant inspiration; and i wrote down the following words in response:

This storm is here for eternity,
No trace of calmness can I see…
No sleep, no rest can soothe my mind
No friend can bring me glee…
This unending quest kills me everyday,
I can’t reach where I want to be…
This doubt can be tyrant I know,
Still this love shall be a part of me…

We appreciated each other’s work and then obviously forgot about it. And just today when I was having my lunch; I got another set of couplets from him in response to what I wrote a week back:

Your storm once raged and passed away,
And the gentle calm did succeed
You slept and eased a troubled mind
Yet now sleep is the friend I need
In those few words you spoke your mind…
…and yet I was so lost, dumb and blind…
Your love’s still a tyrant, there’s no doubt
I’m lost and confused; my soul wants out…

So I just decided to post all the three poems on my blog. But as i am typing here; I can sense the birth of yet another response to his (above written)poem…here it goes..

Why live in the memories of that storm?
That was a reality once…but now its gone…
And why depend on a gentle calm?
And why not make your wounds, your balm?
Sleep- if dreams are where you belong…
Sleep – if that fake world makes you strong!
Don’t be lost, because they won’t find you
Don’t think much because those thoughts might blind you…
Love’s not tyrant; lovers are;
My heart’s a proof – with its shining scars.

Also published in Broowaha

Also published in Opinionsofeye.com

09242014

One Thing, Everyday – Do something to help

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”

– Adam Smith

I saw this picture, a boy collapsed on the road to a UN Food Camp, a vulture waiting for him to die, and I said to myself, “way the hell am I whining about anything?” Am I that frigging spoiled that I don’t recognize how good I have it? After a good self flagellation, I determined these goals in life: take the weight off of those who I’m around, bring a smile to a desperate soul, lift up a broken human being back onto the path of life, and give one hungry soul a bite to eat. Basically, look for the opportunity, everyday, to reach out of my comfort zone and help someone. What if I could do just one thing, everyday, to help someone out? Then my perspective would be changed, then I would stop complaining, then I would really be living.

Lie Anyway – Lies threaten Love

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

cool-story

Speak with your face turned away,

words that I long for you to say.

I believe them even if they may

keep my logic in constant sway

Holding my aching mind at bay

go ahead my love, lie anyway.

Also published in Broowaha

Tear Drop

“It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer…and everything collapses. ” – Colette

atriptomywonderland

I’ll never be without them, they follow me everywhere, when I feel their finally gone, with vengeance they find me again, forcing themselves on me, insisting that I acknowledge them. I scarcely can resist their efforts, so enduring and persistent they’ve become. I give them place, being preeminent in my existence, being associated always with me, my companions, never to leave. I entertain them now, with some resistance, allowing them to have their way with me, to work me into submission. As I give way to them, I stand back, in my mind wondering, perhaps this is the way I must go, to walk with them and be taught by them; it’s a hard way. When joy is born, quickly they are taken from me, teasing me by allowing me to feel a moment’s respite. I go on now, taking them with me, forgive me if leave a few of them on your shoulder…

also published in Broowaha

12082011

Two Methods For Dealing With Negative People

“Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don’t have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction.” ― Shannon L. Alder

The following is an article by a talented writer, David Cain, on his website Raptitude. Enjoy.

A recurring question I get from readers is, “How do you deal with negative people?” I’ve never directly written about it because I’m not always sure whether they’re asking how *I* deal with negative people, or how one ought to deal with negative people. I can only tell you how I do it. There are actually two ways I deal with negative people.

Method 1

When someone makes a needless negative comment, I feel a spike of contempt somewhere in my lungs, and my eyes probably narrow for a second. I give a terse answer, if one is required. My mind says to the person, “Why do you have to be such a dick about it?” but I don’t actually say that. Then once I’m out of their presence I tell stories in my head about how wrong they are, I play out imaginary confrontations, I might make a speech that nobody will hear. Or I think of what I should have said right then, George Costanza style. “Well the jerk store called, and…”

This kind of internal dialogue/monologue can go on until I’m interrupted by real life, but even then it sometimes resurfaces later. It sometimes makes the day a bad day.

With this method, the one thing I don’t do is do something. I do think a lot though. I think with great force and anger. I think up a storm, a real impressive one. I inventory my reasons for how right I am, several letters-to-the-editor’s worth. My body doesn’t do anything except maybe make involuntary faces. It’s possible my tongue moves, I don’t know. In other words, the first of the two methods I have for dealing with negative people is to become one.

Method 2

It starts out the same: person says something negative, and I feel that contempt feeling, but for whatever reason it triggers a different thought process. I do feel the impulse to go on an internal tirade, but I don’t. Instead I find myself recognizing that the offensive party is having a bad day or a bad moment that could just as easily be happening to me. Even if they’re having a bad life, that could just as easily be happening to me too.

It’s not quite forgiveness, it’s more like, “Ah I’ve been there. Frustrated and unreasonable. Directing it at people who don’t deserve it.”

Even though my knee-jerk response is to stare daggers, I’m reminded that people get negative when they’re unconscious, in pain or trying to protect themselves from pain. All human activity can be boiled down to a combination of seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering. Negativity tends to come from avoiding suffering, and if I’m being fair, it helps neither of us to blame them for it.

Pessimism shields people from despair because it keeps expectations low. Blame shields people from the threats of having to be responsible for a problem they don’t think should be happening. I have been caught up in both, at times today even.

When I use method two I end up feeling almost good towards the negative party. It’s a weird feeling if you’re not used to it. The pain of others suddenly becomes directly relevant to you, yet it remains theirs.

Shhhhh…. – Words can maim for life

“Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you.”
― Natsuki Takaya

fbcdn

The tongue can set a fire no man can extinguish. The venomous stings it inflicts can break apart even the best friendships. Life and death are in the power of the words we speak. We’d do well to remember that when we blithely spout off the latest rumors, the latest dirt, about the ones we love. Don’t repeat the gossip, don’t listen to the gossip. Shhhhh…..

Also published in Wingposse Magazine, December 2012

11132011

A Uniquely Exquisite Pattern – The Pain Of Success

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Cicatrices_de_flagellation_sur_un_esclave.jpg

I bear wounds that seem to never heal, a constant pain that surrounds all my reality. Where will I go from it? What will I do with it? Pain is my fuel that stokes the fires of excellence and success. Without it, I’m powerless before pleasure, seduced to be complacent. I bear the marks of life’s whips in a uniquely exquisite pattern. So beautiful are their ragged trails that spell my name – “Survivor”. To excel I must accept my pain. When I fight it, or hide from it, it kills me. When I accept it, it empowers me. Mourn your pain, then brush yourself off, take it by the ear and demand from it success, knowing that unless you experience the depths of pain, you’ll not know the heights of joy.

Also published in: Broowaha
02202011

Yet His Eyes – PTSD

“The guns taught only one thing, but they taught it well: of what consequence is life? Of what consequence is a man? And, therefore, of what consequence if he tramples love in one place and goes to find it in the next? The little moment that he has, let him be at peace, far from the guns and all that remind him of them.” – Cornell Woolrich, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich

ureyes2me

The wound, hidden, bled through his clothes

Those he meets casually talk in cliches

Yet his eyes, bright with promise, gleam for today

He will never stop running, though he grows weak,

from the stain flowing down his shirt

Yet his eyes, bright with promise, gleam for today

If you need help with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) click here

08082011