Ugliness

Is there a limit to ugliness?

Well, I don't think so.

When it becomes too much,
I shut down.

Ugly is when I stop paying
respect to the tiniest insect.

I am careless and negligent
toward inanimate objects.

Then pomp turns hideous
and Show is hollow.

When the most painted face
puts on a fake smile it turns ugly.

The dead the faded the tattered
are not ugly, they still
carry a dignity within.

Walls disfigured aren't ugly
they are screaming rebellion.

Back Seat

If you like to be

in the driver's seat

all the time,

try taking

the back seat

and watch yourself.

Driving your life

turns out to be

one way of viewing it.

The driver is the driven

in the larger flow of life

that hurtles down history

between the banks of

society and power

to finally merge in the

ocean of humanity.

Back seat is the choice

between driving compulsively

and watching as one flows.

Bald truth

Baldness is not a bald fact

For a bald man,

just as there is no naked truth

In a nudist colony.

We use bodily states

To clothe states of mind.

There is nothing bald or naked

About a bald naked man.

Beating around the bush

We play games with ourselves

as we start growing up.

We don't want to accept defeat

nor do we believe we can win.

So every new suggestion is 'good'

and we secretly yearn for it

but we find hundred reasons why it won't work.

We are the owls that don't leave the garden

and won't allow it to blossom.

A father's tears for his daughter

My eyes moisten

as she picks up

from the album

photos of a sunny childhood;

her nostalgia

touches my silent suffering

over her pain of a world

shattering again

I cannot bear

to see her hold on fast

to dreams past.

My control-freak Ghost

It follows me everywhere

without intimation

and is present in every conversation

editing every word uttered by whoever.

Merciless is the word when it

rubbishes anything it doesn't like.

The pitch of my voice it modulates

from high, when disagreeing,

to low, when pleading.

It pulls me back from the present

to the rock of icy ego

formed over the past centuries.

The remote control of my life

and actions.

Making Life

To live life

you want to make it

to being somebody -

with money, with name

with expertise, with respect.

How do you get it, except by

helping someone in need

and then more and more

people in need.

If they can pay

you get money

if they cannot

you get respect

and a following.

Making life is making expertise

in relieving another's need.


image: courtesy Karen, livingcivil.com