Cyclical

This is a message poem I wrote a while back. Something to know about me for context here is that I'm agnostic, coming from an RCC background.

Round and round you spin.

Where you stop?

Everyone knows,

it’s where you think you’ll win.

Taking on the round-about

way to explain

the beginning of days,

the torrential rains and droughts

begin and fade,

and on and on for weeks

upon days

you rant and rave

that it’s meant to be,

this wave of louse.

For the louse comes from

somewhere close, they’re wing drums

beat to a creator’s palindrome,

back and forth it swings with you,

not realizing that where you started

is where you’ve come back to.

No floods nor waves

will seem to douse

this incessant bout of

babbling and swearing at the skies above

that what you think you know

is truth.

But it’s not.

Not for me, not for him or her,

for thousands of millions of curs

beneath your feet.

We will not bow or bend,

we’d rather rend

our clothes in freedom

than clothe ourselves in slavery;

to be bound in mind

against our senses,

to plead for peace

while building defenses

to block out our humanity,

the frailty

that makes us one.

You tell us we’re not whole,

but nay, I tell you, you’re the ones

full of holes,

left unholy and bare

on the floor.

We watch you, weeping,

while you chase your tail

as if it’s a prize for your keeping

if only you could reach.

Grasping in the blinding

black of want and assuming,

you make the thing you want to see,

and mirrored is what appears,

the frame blending into backgrounds

of so many more god-faces reaching,

all unknowingly deafened to hear

the simple message:

“You find only yourself here.”

You discover nothing, but find

only you, the barest,

most craved and dreaded,

painted and fettered form

that is your real desire.

For man wants naught but power,

and what more could man want

but a tower

of beggars and pleaders,

the alm-givers giving just as much pain

and all the more bringing

the worst of you. To drain

the life and feel enriched,

to win over all and watch others suffer.

To have them in their place,

and you,

the alpha who knows,

the omega who ends,

and the all who owns it all.

Sound familiar?

Good.

It should.

This is what you carve in the mirror,

the silhouette that breaks asunder

the simple reality of you.

Oh, such a pitiable fool

you show yourself to be

in the moment of humanity,

the one piece of us

which makes real the terror

we bring upon ourselves,

for we deny that which makes us

human.

And this manifests,

it insults and jests

at what we know best,

to be what we are.

And so help you, yes,

you will listen.

You heed the cyclical joke

of what is wrong with being human,

you are forced to choke

on perceptions

of imperfections

and in that deception,

refuse to cope.

You’d rather be wrapped

in this preconceived notions

than recognize

and take pride

in the imperfect

perfection

that is the reality of man.

And so your cycle starts again,

and round and round you spin.

Author's Note

Critique welcome. I'm hoping to someday record myself performing this piece as well.