San Andreas Shaking

Reality is often so powerful it shakes us to our very core, and alters our terrain forever

There had been a major shift in the terrain of my reality.
You would have to have lived on the west coast to fully understand.
The San Andreas lifted off the earth’s axis,
It lifted, it buckled and it spun me off my center
Tossing heartache over me like the debris of shale and rock.

What I had believed was not true, and what I lived was a lie.
Love was not to be trusted and the comings and goings of my days
turned out to be a twisted web of deceits weaving.
The earth beneath me lurched and shifted
snapping the bones of a covenant of faith.

Most people don’t really change and those who build their lives on lies,
Usually continue to live out their days in the shadows of deception,
Incapable of honesty and honor....
Their lips nibbled on by nuance, ever moving with muscles of manipulation,
Slick and smooth, perfected over the years by a need to disguise themselves.

Nothing would change on the surface,
I’d put the trinkets back on the shelves and the smile on my face
to match pretense for pretense with my words,
and the earth would settle back just an inch or two off its
fatal fault line in the crust,
But a sacred closeness was blown away with the falling dust.
 

Reviews

[Sam Freeland]

Having lived directly above the San Andreas in San Mateo highlands for several years
your poem touched me with deep understanding and the good fortune to not
have experienced its wrath. My daughter was born and spent her first five years there; she
still loves the California experience. She has found a place across the bay, but
my fear for her is real every day. She was fortunate not to have been on the east shore
freeway when it fell years back. I will send her a copy of your poem. She is fearless,
having been on water skiis with her mother six months before being born.

[Poetic Injustice]

Very well done! I felt ... I saw ....

[ShadowWolf]

How often we fool ourselves into not seeing reality.

[Pointblank]

Theres a depth to your words that each person can construe for themselves. Very searched and soulful and realization of sorts. Thanks for your reviews and I enjoyed reading your work. Thank You for sharing t.