Pressure to proceed
Along superlative
Singleminded thick Straight lines
Takes a detour
Onto meandering, blossoming
Summer lavender trails
Giving chase to joyous ends
Of heart & mind
Only each
Alone
Knowing
Its beguiling forlorn quest:
To think, to write, to speak
To act
Without restraint

Realization of dreams
Close to the heart
Dear to the mind
Before the world
Accomplishments stacked
Like so many books
Walls overcrowded with trophies & diplomas & moose heads
Become dictators to
Fragile false selves hooked
More by the fawning crowd
Than by forays into acts of
Liberating self-kindness

Fleeing the inconspicuous
Ubiquitous slave master’s
Imposed preposterous perfection
Into the night
With untrue & tired old friends
Rebelling by escape
We vampires
Our hungry tongues
Compulsively lapping
At life’s myriad elixirs
Promising eternal peace
Power & ecstasy

Simple
Participating presence in time’s gift:
A life lived…
Well enough
To realize all it fancies
To which most do not dare
To dream of giving flight
Lest they fall paralyzed
Into Fear’s gaping guise of
Contentedness

The most interesting
Slave to perfection
The world has ever known
The master’s perfect dream
Gone
Awry