1)
My hero worship is dead
like Caesar at the ides of March,
et tu, Brother Brutus?
the Percival armor is demolished
word sword battle axed
bridges burned to charcoal crisp.
Adrenaline rush anger bluff
playground bully stuff
brain maze racing lightning rebuff
argument battle of wits
right and wrong pointless
debating competitions
I win by exiting.
2)
Love is the transcendent thread
the universal umbilical
that leads us back to original.
Families highlight the light and dark
like mirrors of perception
but love remains quietly without question
before time and wounds were formed
love was the original creative force.
3)
Au revoir mon frere, bonne chance.
I think he was a past life acquaintance in France.
During the French Revolution
when we were both male
born into hierarchical stations.
He was an aristocrat.
I was an artist.
I painted a portrait of him with his family.
They were immaculately polished
in plush velvet and intricate lace.
I catered to extremely wealthy people
with extraordinarily expensive tastes
with grand palaces like cities.
I traveled in those privileged circles
as a working-class artisan, never as their equal.
I lost my head along with theirs
for guilt by association.
I have no proof
just the intuitive realization.
4)
Imagination is more important
than knowledge said Einstein.
My brother too, was born on Pi day
and he majored in Physics.
Now he’s convinced that I’m going to hell
for not believing in his god
and that I murdered our mother with stress
but all of her life was already filled with it
long before I came and left their empty nest.
At 22 I was too old to be a runaway
leaving my violent childhood home
wasn’t ever a crime
and I can’t propagate cancer.
Brother, for such an intelligent person
why are you so ignorant?
I can’t forgive him for blaming me for her death. Maybe someday but not now, I can’t forgive the guilt that he vomited on me.
He was angry because I’m a truth-speaker
I’m the youngest, the quiet one
who was secretly bold
brave enough to escape the hold of tradition
the clan mindset, the conformist tribe.
Self-taught to think and decide for myself
that was unacceptable to their cultural customs
where hierarchy and respect is everything.
But when I was a child he provided a net
a sense of protection and safety
he helped the version of me that survived
coped and stayed alive
the me that exists, is in part, due to him.
I will always be grateful to him for that.
5)
I hope to see him sometime again
away from this place of delusion and amnesia.
Earth is a school of remembering
what you knew before and forgot
when you were born.
Life is not a punishment
Life is a reward of creating and learning.
Afterlife is an elevated space of wisdom
from the vantage point of perfect knowing
in the everlasting natural grace of being
to the source that we all launched from
and will return to like sunlit prisms
silver lined clouds swirl
gliding like angel birds.
Lots of powerful and thought-provoking lines here. This one stood out to me: “Life is not a punishment / Life is a reward of creating and learning.” I always love the idea of the “universal umbilical” where we’re all connected. A lot to unpack here and think about.
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Thank you, Benjamin for your thoughtful comment.
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