There is a darker underbelly to our lives we tend to ignore, to our peril. It might be said that we don’t find our lives. Our lives find us. And, when they do, it’s not always with a welcome and a click of the heels. Life can storm upon us, raging and lusting for more than its fair share of pain and woe. What we do with these tumultuous moments ultimately defines who we are becoming. They also birth great words if we let our pencils down from the rafters.

Hear the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names…

This is the next piece in my foray into meta-poetry.

II

You hide under the precipice of your own misdeeds,

your miscalculations act as the belt around

the pants of your own shame.

Here, the rains can’t come.

Here, the foes of restraint and full-plumed capacity

can’t find you splayed out, legs spread,

skin available and raw. Here, you can

hide what lawns of leverage have provided

growing spaces for the personal politics of

hatred. But, make no mistake, though the ravished

rumps of these unsuspecting fools as you call them

might be your bitch, love’s poetry

is your garment, a hand to pull away

the guise of the cylindrical. It will give instead –

a horizon.