Estrangement
How is it we’re aware of self
And yet feel so estranged?
What is it that we sense we’ve lost
And hope we can regain?
Is not birth our beginning?
Is not our death the end?
If nothing comes from nothing
There must be an origin
And this must be eternal
Hence, can never terminate
For change is mere potential
Blooming from a latent state
If we come from that essence
Then we share identity
We be one with the cosmos
And adjoin Divinity
The mystery of the universe
And Self are both the same
The wonder of our sentience holds
The ever holy flame
We grapple with illusion
This mortal glass so dark
The truth of all reality
Reflects the inner spark
The Masterpiece
The master’s hand was steady
His eye would capture light
He always knew his subject
And breathed into it life
But every time he set to put
His masterpiece to canvas
Life would interrupt him
And would steal his time like bandits
He’d go to aid a friend in need
Or cheer a saddened heart
He’d work to support family
And teach his students art
He took the time to play with kids
To celebrate at weddings
To visit aging elders
And attend church baby blessings
He never seemed to find the time
To finish what he started
Some say he lacked ambition
Or was lazy and fool hearted
The day he died
Unfinished his famed masterpiece still stood
And yet his life reverberates
In countless acts of good
Did he waste his talents?
Was he vexed with tedium?
Or did his skill transcend the brush
And find a living medium?
Evolving Expertise
There is a runged progression to becoming
The Novice must apprentice for a time
And learn under the invisible Master
Ever faithful--ever present with the mind
One must develop expertise of empathy
One must quell human ego in its pride
One must uncover universal unity
One must explore awareness from inside
One must acquire benevolent balance
One must awaken love within the heart
One must cultivate pure selfless volition
To master the aesthetics of soul art
Interior Design
We aren’t creatures of circumstance
Nor steered by course in life
We’re not spawned by our choices
Nor action circumscribed
We aren’t built by emotions
Nor do thoughts seal our plight
‘Tis motive which precedes them all
And issues forth its type
To change the world, we change ourselves
And inner soul refine
By understanding nature
Of interior design
Desires of the heart will bud
Into the realm of thought
Then converge in emotions
Which will fuel the actions wrought
Which coalesce in choices
Then converge into life course
As circumstance congeals
Into our joy or our remorse
Composition
The aesthetics of the soul involve
Spiritual composition
Of unity, perspective
And of balanced, shaped volition
For motive of the heart reveals
The truth of what we are
While balance requires wisdom
And an eye to see afar
And empathy adds depth
To the perspective of the Self
While unity enjoins it all
In universal wealth
By these we craft our masterpiece
Authentic and unique
We seek Divine approval
Yet we’re judged through Self-critique
Grotesque Abstracts
As he put on a perfect face
A demon growled beneath
And as his smile widened
You could see his gritting teeth
Behind human exteriors
Strange creatures lurk inside
There is a face we show the world
Another that we hide
Yet self is not an abstract
We can alter with our lies
The grotesque traits we cover-up
Remain uncivilized
This nagging constant irritant
Is there where e’er you go
Whose company you must endure
While putting on a show
And yet you can’t contain the beast
Its heart is truly wild
It leaps out of its burrow
In a schizophrenic style
When will we realize
That we cannot lead double lives
That truth and lies can’t coexist
For therein psyche rives
The soulscape is a work of art
That we ourselves create
The hand that wields the brush
Is the same hand that seals our fate
Self-Portrait
I painted a self-portrait
And showed it to my friends
But their response was puzzling
They tried not to offend
But when they asked the subject’s name
I said, “Of course--it’s me!”
“Is it an abstract of yourself?”
“Or how you wish to be?”
At first I did not understand
Then looked inside the mirror
My eyes had bags, my hair a mess
And teeth lacked sparkle clear
The dirt and grime had clogged my pores
Till blemishes had reared
I must have drawn the image
As I hoped that I appeared
I went back to the drawing board
But first I washed my face
I brush my teeth and combed my hair
And beauty slept for days
So now each time I face the mirror
I see me as I am
In which I found more beauty
Than the farce that I began
Whenever we deny the truth
Of what we are inside
The self-image that we create
Turns abstract in our pride
To achieve inner beauty
Ye must see the self thou art
Then cultivate the soul in love
On canvas of the heart
Soul Art
The canvas of a heart
Unique
Potential undefined
An infant’s spotless innocence
A surface primed with light
The spirit comes to distill
On the blank slate of a mind
Where conscience engaged
Holds unfettered promise
It’s not a paint by numbers
An abstract, nor still life
Its beauty is authentic
Our love not artifice
Though society coerces us
To color in the lines
A masterpiece above all must be honest
Across the frame of time
Is stretched the soulscape of a life
A transcendent self-portrait
Of interior design
Composed of will
Self is revealed
In that a Divine spark
A living, breathing medium
As our life becomes art
Chameleon on the Glass
There once lived in the mystic world
Chameleons with eyes of pearl
The scales and pattern of their skin
Could mimic all their eyes took in
The hue of rainbows they had caught
And changed at will by taking thought
Yet their true form and color lost
And origin at length forgot
Their instincts leaned towards blending in
Surroundings thus became their skin
Upon a rock their camouflage
Was so exact, it gave them pause
“We must be stones”, yet One resigned
“A stone does not my soul defined.”
“Perhaps our nature’s as the green,”
“Of grass and leaves.” and some agreed
And so they split from their own kind
For they were of a different mind
And thus became some reptiles green
Despising other color schemes
Yet still the One sensed something wrong
“I am not leaves, nor as a lawn.”
“I’ll find the truth as I am able.”
Then left the rest, and shook the label
And thus it searched both far and wide
Exotic tones wherein to hide
But found no home and became rash
“My true nature must be to clash.”
And so exposed its unique form
Then bore the brunt of fellow’s scorn
Yet knew its difference but a lie
And sought the water’s edge reply
Its surface stretched as if a mirror
Reflections bounce was crystal clear
And endless image it repelled
A vortex shape absorbed in self
Confusion reached its fever pitch
In who was what and which was which
Then closed its eyes all to subtract
The outer world--its skin turned black
The other lizards gasped in horror
“Its demon turns exterior!”
But essence journey must begin
Alone the search for self within
To flush from soul and shed the skin
That stains our hearts and minds therein
Invent we thus our genuine
For bounds are scribed as imagined
Just then its skin began to glow
Strange waves of hue, and tone did flow
As others awed, it stood dead still
Displaying colors stark surreal
Then into focus scenics true
A rising up from birds eye view
Above the pond, above the glade
Above the rocks its trek displayed
As soaring through a cloudy maze
Above the earth towards sun ablaze
Erupting in ethereal white
Its skin shed forth a brilliant light
That caught the gaze of all His kind
As six drew near with eyes aligned
To form a circle of the seven
As if a rite of prayer to heaven
Then waking from His vision saw
Twelve perfect pearls of retina
Which sent a tingling through their skin
And lit a fire of ware within
Then something happened far more strange
Their bleak surroundings morphed and changed
The deserts bloomed, the heavens swirled
T’was in their souls to shape their world
Now patterned in their flesh we see
The oneness lost to hell’s own Lethe
Empathic pearls sought of the wise
Fill up their souls now full of eyes
