Divided

Vaguely political, extremely metaphorical.

On the fringe,
darkness is never far behind
and moonlight licks her lips
and sometimes can’t speak
and the black brook fails
his babbled ominous rhythms.

 

A land divided
always falls;
A person divided
never leads.

 

Rhymes and sentences,
like flesh flayed upon the page
lay bare what mediocrity invented
and construed them and the wind
weeps without end, inconsolable,
and the star sisters twinkle messages
to one another in deepest chagrin at
what they see and know, for as you know,
farsight, foresight, hindsight is 20/20, so they say.

 

A land divided
always falls;
A soul divided
never heals.

 

Tree torn from earth,
mother from child, both beaten by
cruel fathers in that cruel cycle that
never ends and meets them when they
lie awake at night and dream of sleep
but find mere shadows of the past
behind their eyelids; they cannot flee
the fate Time thrusts upon them;
they cannot undo the past prejudices,
privileges, missteps, mistakes, misgives, mishaves.

 

For a land divided
always falls;
separation cannot
breed union.

 

The eagle fights the night
and distrusts the day, disdains
and oppresses those without his eagle eyes,
large, black, unseeing and blind to injustice,
and foolish pride and loyalty prevents
the sparrows and ravens from coming together,
from combining their forces to bring the tyrant down.

 

And so it goes,

 

A sky divided
can fall, too;
false friends
lack solidarity.

 

Only through unity can nature know peace,
and the sky must live in harmony with the earth,
and the sea with the land, the moon with the sun,
and no division can come between day and night
for one bleeds into another like a lover taken slowly
for the first time, and so it goes that two halves
cannot hold together two wholes but must meet
on the dividing line and mold at once or else fall
away; so how is this done?
How do the fringes meet the center?

 

Lines drawn through lines,
forming circles, forming squares,
all shapes without any barriers,
knowing their purpose is to be one,

 

Because a world divided falls away,
and only its union is fated to stay.
No barriers, no holds, no division;
only trust, answers, true union.

Author's Note

I wrote this in a flight of insomnia, but I suppose it didn't turn out that bad. Constructive criticism welcomed!

Reviews

[Wolfwind]

This was an amazing piece of ink. You have woven so many of the modern day issues, calmly and subtly into your words, that they only are an echo in the ear as the vision of unity becomes the driving force of the piece. I'm not one for pieces that deal with politics by in large, but how you composed this was fantastic. It tells a tale and askes the one question that we all must ask, if the world is to ever become a unity of peace.

Amazing Ink!
Aaron =)

[Amanda Granger]

Thank you so much for the insightful review! I'm glad you caught what I was conveying and liked it. :D

[Stan Thorkin]

Brilliant. I like your wide range of vocabulary and I enjoyed the poem's picture—Pink Floyd's THE DIVISION BELL.

[Amanda Granger]

Thank you very much. :D I'm glad you noticed that haha. I thought it felt at least somewhat appropriate.

[Nick.B]

Great piece you manage to write here, very complex which raises a lot of question about the modern day and about us as "modern man"...anyway great job

[Michael Kevin Spencer]

There is idealism in these lines and the pain of a suffering Earth and unjust humanity. Yet it is poetic, I felt the lyricism in parts.

The mixing of smaller stanzas was a nice touch! I would write about the same such things as well :)

[Amanda Granger]

Thank you! I would say that I am very much an idealist while also trying to remain somewhat grounded in reality. It's easy for the idealist to be crushed by the harsh divisions and problems in the world, that's for sure, but looking for a solution is imperative. I imagined the repetition almost as a refrain or a chorus, even though it's not a song, just the same idea.

I'm glad you liked it. :)

[anartao]

I loved this poem, and it really echoes deep inside of me. Beautifully written, and hugely evocative, i especially loved the lines -
"and foolish pride and loyalty prevents
the sparrows and ravens from coming together,
from combining their forces to bring the tyrant down."
How i wish we could overcome our petty distinctions and divisions, defining ourselves by what we are not, and start defining by what we want to create !

[Amanda Granger]

My thoughts exactly! Thank you for the kind words. :) I'm happy it resonated with you.