Ecce Homo

Aches and pains lasso the wild horses of the mind

Herding them back to their stables where they

Stare at the walls ruminating, twitching, alone.

The fields and their flowers in the sun are a memory,

The hooves sinking in the sand are a distant dream.

 

A world once wide shrinks and now is held

Captive within one’s cold, sweaty skin.

It’s all here, within these bounds:

A feverish tropics, a freezing arctic,

A desert devoid of life, and a deaf and mute sky.

 

What is man, but a painted thought, or

A mask on a face no one has ever seen.

A misty cloud, though compelled by law to rise,

Bound to a lifeless rock, doomed to live

Through eons and ages and not grow wise.

Reviews

[Marie]

The title of the poem enticed me in to read it, Laz K. "Ecce Homo" (behold a man), I assumed was about Jesus, but I was not correct in my thinking. In this finely crafted poem you paint a picture of the aches and pains which age brings our way, the distant memory of the fields of flowers, the sunshine so warm back then and how we spend time now thinking of life back then. Since those happy days the world has shrunk thanks to flights and is now help prisoner within one's mind. I love the allegory in the final stanza. In life we may be doomed to live through the ages and yet now acquire wisdom. A masterly penned poem studded with superb visual detail and dotted with metaphor, insightful and very thought provoking. Thank you so very much for sharing. I so enjoyed reading, dear poet...

[Laz K.]

Thank you, Marie, for your insightful thoughts!

[Marie]

Most welcome always, dear poet...