Naked Reality

Let me be clear, my choice is not broken.

Through battered heart and vacant glances

I stand up and my crutch is pride,

Supporting me like noose looped round my neck.

I stand erect, yet soul bows down

To wipe the floor o’er which I float.

While playing “angel” I can gloat and for

What? This visage? So much to be seen-

Looking out and not in between.

Am I being coy? Excuse me my dear.

I don’t want your pity or glances,

advances, or second chances.

I want to be seen and to be known but

Not for praise, no accolades please to

Conflagrate this deadly ego.

Ergo, I need truth always at my feet.

Like the dust on my boots at day’s end,

And fresh snow I trudge in the morn.

How I do mourn this constancy of “real”!

Can you be real? That’s what I need not

Marionettes, false piety

Or narrowed minds that cannot meet a foe

For lack of sharpened dialogue-O

Coherent language rest in peace

For while you sleep no peace are we to have!

And to hold a solid value-well

That won’t keep you warm at night,

Unless it blazes into flames and that

Bear of a pride lays flat as rug and

Ruggedly you too lie down bare

And reach your hand into the adder’s lair.

There heat can reach at last beneath

the slime and utter sloppiness

Of living life with good intent but not

Defining what you mean to say by

GOOD!

By God is good the friendliest of words!

To be nice, to be fit, to be fine-

My dear Webster, he falls asleep,

And thereby rests my case- O my dear “good”!

I wish you would not rest but take those

Wimpy platitudes to the gym!

I must insist that marriage you make for

Logic is in want of modest bride,

She a moral compass to guide

Between the citadels of choices that

are piled high as principles-how

strange- autonomy salutes and

waves to me from up above yet I’m stuck

grounded by my heavy moral code.

These are such wily semantics.

If interchange I “choice” with “right” and use

My mind to thus define worthiness

Then we are un-Donne! For now man

Is truly an island unto himself.

What loneliness must overcome the

Human who is always in right!

He weaves his victories into a crown

that weighs heavily upon his head

And easily becomes nuisance

New sense? But what of the old? Aged is not

synonymous with archaic-as

if wisdom could be nascent thought!

Wait- a thought has arrived, it seems a dream

This “good” of which I’ve so tried to speak

once sat upon a mighty throne.

Can we not make to dignify an heir

to such a mighty line as Value?

My friend I do extend my hand.

Thusfar we have mingled in our folly.

But hope arises lest we despair

And makes a foothold for our cares.

Truth cannot be pinned like tail on donkey

Nor does it bleed with candy when thrust

upon by double-edged sword.

Here I repeat: My choice is not broken.

I use it in its virgin meaning-

to lean my heart upon action.

Thereby my actions now take moral tone

I choose to love and as evidence

leave fingerprints upon your life.

Dearest Goodness, I faint in sorrowing

That some may not know you as they ought.

But let me say to you, Arise.

Stripped at last of clichés, I strip my pride

And walk beside you as olden friend

Clothed in naked reality.