Word(s) to the Wise

The order used to be
sticks, then stones,
words inflicting the least
- in damages
or quite unable to
even if the user willed it.

Nowadays it doesn't take
a word smith to launch:
a verbal "nuclear first strike"
no matter how dull the weapon
or void of wit, the wielder,
trifle words end up
meaning too much,
people understanding too little.

No wonder:
democratized medium
with neither access to facility,
nor honing of ability,
leads us not unto inspiration
(nor aspiration)
thus delivering us from thinking.

Eating Pie

Nothing like the present
quite as efficacious:
a wake up call.

Better than cold water,
stronger than pure coffee,
calling your attention,
your inelegant life.

Weary as the whirring
aged fan's engine,
hapless,
hopeless,
unsuccessfully going about
the business of cooling
when air itself has grown
heavy, weighed down,
and laden with swollen heat
a painful summer's day
with nothing mild about it

Thwarted by the sting,no doubt
other cowards like yourself
hide away in uninspiring dwellings
safety often the refuge
of the uninspired.

Wisdom: A Warning

Hesitation often fancied
as doubt, lack of courage
is also
the timely company
of safety.

An instinct,
an instant,
kicking in
-an ancient warning:
primordial,
prehistoric wisdom.

But how to tell
dark clouds
from silver
that's the trick;
which doubt to heed
which one to overcome:

That is to succeed.

Identity: The Unsolved Mystery

Skin is seen and your body
is the sign people saw as you.

While others in condemnation
still many in consolation,
all just the same:
they saw you as your body
your signifying skin tone,
your eyes,color of hair,
your "otherness"in that place
still so fixated on the "other"
that is not pale or flaxen,
blue green, or hazel gazes
-which many of them
are not.

I wonder now whether
you saw yourself
as everyone else did:
the exotic "other" or
by their standards,
their expectation,
gifted in science,
math or classical music,
I wonder now
whether you hated it,
resented people,
-for thinking it.

You got our attention
and you knew you would
but did you figure
on being "seen" (by the world)
the way others have seen you
all along?