An Idiot Wind Blows

a wind is sweeping the land
no wait, across our planet
the wind blows through the halls of power
no country is sacrosanct


mediocrity our new political watchword
on a good day!
on every other day
we would be considered blessed
to have mediocre leaders


the wind of the bigot
the ignorant
the illiterate autocrat
blows with vigour
no stone left unturned
all that stand in the way 
bashed, broken, ripped apart


theocracy takes flight
the hot air of idiocy
blows with venom
from the open gaping
vacuous mouths
of our elected leaders


even when they are eloquently
hoisted on their own petard
their praise singers and chorus lines
run to the fore
like court jesters of old


the halls are silent
laughter is absent
intentions are real, deceitful
wrestling power and control
from the blind electorate
who have realised to late
the error of their ballot cross
has now become a cross they cannot bear

© 2015 michael d emmerich

A Sonnet of Requited Passion

Trying my hand at writing a sonnet… lets see how it goes (my first sonnet) inspired by and dedicated to my wife 🙂

Oh the journey of danger

Begins with the form,

Of one who is not a stranger

But rather with a burning storm


Passions unleashed by ones love

As the dangerous flowing curves

Of her female form are void

Of all clothing and other womanly reserves


Laid bare to the silhoutte

Of the fading streaming golden sunlight,

As the two-tone colours on an artists palette

Raising raging desires to a height


All these passions can only be sated

Once heightened passions have abated

 

© 2015 Michael D Emmerich

The Ven of Life

Over the past few days a good friend of mine passed away, and upon his passing, and it has dragged me along to think of death, the fragile state of our existence and how quickly and unexpectedly the candle can be snuffed out. It made me remember something my dad said before he died: that its a sad day when you get to the stage of your live when your friends start to die around you … having lost a few friends of late, all in their mid 50’s, I have had cause to gaze introspectively at my navel, and just contemplate life.. and all its joys, friends, family and time spent with them, recollections of past events/encounters, and all the pleasure that these interactions have brought.

For those who know me, they would say that it is an irony that I get so closely caught up in death, with all its pain and emotion, seeing as though I have seen so much of it in my career, in so many places and caused by so many different events. All that prevents me from getting dragged into the quagmire of death; is my ability to insulate myself, build a wall…although that has also been to my own detriment, and I have, of late become more immersed in the death and pain which I encounter in my daily walk.

All these thoughts, emotions and reflections have moved me to pen this poem:

The Ven of Life

all that we are and have is our emotions

interactions and experiences

all that we have is the ven of our lifes

as we journey through life we cross paths with strangers

friends, family and loved ones



it is these paths that cross

intersect which drag us into the ven

the bigger the interaction the greater the ven

the more we interact the more we ven

we cannot exist without interacting



the extent of our interactions increases our circle

the more we interact the more we overlap

seeking to be apart of the greater universal circle

the commonality of our existence increases our ven

the more walls we break down the more we interact

the more expose ourselves to risk and become more fragile



this fragility increases our ven

which then enriches our lives

only through the ven of life
can we fully enjoy and appreciate

all that life has to offer

so ven on!

© 2015 Michael D Emmerich

Thoughts on getting lost as a means of finding oneself…

Rebecca Solnit, whose mind and writings are among the most consistently enchanting of our time, explores this tender tango with the unknown in her altogether sublime collection of essays in A Field Guide to Getting Lost 

I thoroughly enjoy her writings, having indulged in a few of her books and essays. And Getting Lost is one of the more personally transformative collection of essays I have had the pleasure of reading. Solnit, explores themes and issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and our place on this planet.

Solnit writes in the opening essay:

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?

Henry Miller wrote: “On how one orients himself to the moment, depends the failure or fruitfulness of it.” we are all apart of this transitional process called – Life.

“There is an illusion of ‘end,’ a stasis seemingly like death. But it is only an illusion. Everything, at this crucial point, lies in the attitude which we assume towards the moment.”

Henry Miller

T.S. Eliot’s poem Four Quarters –  expounds on the journey of life and its self discovery, and ultimately learning to know ourselves. we are on a never-ending lifelong journey of exploration – of our self, environment, the world in which we live.Life is a destination, but prehaps we never really travel further than we really are at this present moment, all that changes is our understanding of the now …

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find ourselves. Never to get lost is not to live.

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