Tag Archives: Optimism

On The General Nature Of Material Things

In this world of cats and dogs,

Of black and white, of bricks and logs,

It seems it nature’s choice we trust

The things which most resemble us,

Because of nature or our minds,

We oft call “evil” other kinds

Of creatures, colors, or supplies;

To do this I don’t think is wise.

If dogs chase cats or cats scratch dogs,

If we stack bricks or burn some logs

We do these things not out of spite

But merely ’cause it feels right.

So are we, by our nature, wrong

To do as we’ve done all along

Merely since a precious few

Feel malice as these things they do?

Shall we, must we, can we insist

That the building and the chase desist?

Are we all not good human beings

But, one and all, [Insert here]-ist fiends?

I like to think what harm we do

Is in pursuit of what is true,

And if we don’t find verity

We fail with true sincerity.

Impose not evil on the Earth

For no more than being given birth

And if another’s sin you see

Know the sinner is human like you and me.

Perhaps through this we’ll forget war,

We’ll never suffer anymore.

More likely we’ll still scratch and bite

But, mindfully, still smile despite.

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Goliath Is Overrated

What if you were the Ocean,

The giver of life?

The sun in the sky,

The opponent of strife?

How ’bout Abraham Lincoln,

The breaker of chains,

Or the guy who made aspirin,

Reliever of pain?

If you were a titan,

A hero to all

Would you waste your own life

‘Cause today you feel small?

So why open that bottle

Or play Russian Roulette

Just ’cause your inner titan

Hasn’t changed the world yet?

And if, on the off chance

You’re the non-titan type

You still have good reasons

To live without gripe:

Many a diamond

Began life as mere coal

And the smallest of molehills

Means the world to its mole.

Every flower must bloom,

Every river must flow.

It takes millions of light years

To see a star’s glow,

And your non-titan life

Is a life nonetheless.

Whose molehill will you be?

That’s anyone’s guess.

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Paper Heart

Twenty years or so before

I turned the age of 24

I feared to give a paper heart

To that one special lass.

Ten years after, now 14

I’ve had my eye on other queens

But my feeling for the paper heart girl

Never seems to pass.

In the present world we find

Our troubled and still childish mind

Called to give the other sex

Eternal loyalty.

I’m loyal to who understands

My paper heart and shaking hands.

Does she still exist? Perhaps

In ten more years we’ll see.

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At Least “Epic Fails” Are Epic

There is no good or evil,

Just what we like or don’t.

Nothing is impossible,

Only what we will or won’t.

For every fearful sceptic

Who says “Man cannot fly”

There is Wright or Icarus

Who’s laughing from the sky.

You’ll be blessed with many Yeses

For every worldly No.

Will you risk Youtube infamy

To give your dream a go?

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I Guess This Makes Me A Bigot, Right?

Go back a century or so

And you’ve got places blacks can’t go.

You’d be shamed to dare to love

A person from a class above.

Today my alma maters wants

To build us “No white student” haunts

And though we seek to seem the same

What’s “Commonplace” is seen as lame.

Back then we fought for equal rights

For blacks and browns and reds and whites.

Now in our “That’s racist” nation

We praise illegal immigration.

Does no one else yet see the flaw

In praising those who break the law,

The symptoms of a dying nation

Shouting for resegregation?

Yes, I want love, so please desist

With calling me “Supremacist”

And maybe past our skin we’ll find

We share a human heart and mind.

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The Vanishing Glass

They can trap us in their zoo

Behind their walls of glass

And teach us social boundaries

That we’re not allowed to pass,

Feed us just enough bad news

To keep our anger stoked

So we don’t see the sedatives

With which we’re being poked.

We the livestock draw the crowds

Of wealthy and elected

Whose power cries more loudly

Than the souls they have neglected.

They say they’ll cure our poverty

If they can have their way

Then toast with million dollar wine

And fly their jets away.

We watch the birds who fly outside

This zoo we somehow cherish.

We think that if we join them

We would starve or freeze or perish,

Yet the glass is not unbreakable

In our patron’s steel zoo.

Some of us still crave the sky

And so I ask: Do you?

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The Optimist Manifesto

There are no starless evenings

And never will there be.

Nothing stops existing

Just because you cannot see.

If you call a glass half-empty

Or say one plus three is two

You do not hurt reality

Except the part that’s you.

And if you look up at the sky

Upon some cloudy night

And say the stars are lovely

When there’s not a star in sight

That doesn’t make you foolish

And you’ll only seem a dope

To those who never knew of faith

And have forgotten hope.

I pledge to always be the fool

Who calls a crow a dove,

Who calls the wind the breath of God,

Whose sin is too much love.

While I may not know what’s real

I know that I know not

So why not choose to fill the void

With one more happy thought?

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No Signal

Last evening I went to a party

To enjoy silly games with my friends,

To gaze in their eyes and avoid all the lies

That daily the Buy Stuff Guild sends.

But when I arrived at the meeting

I found my compatriots dead

For they talked as robots, just of things, not of thoughts,

Comparing what their Facebooks said.

Now I wander the streets, I the phoneless

Through the crowd who feel proud of their debt.

Is there still a someone who is friends with the sun,

To whom strangers’ hellos are no threat?

Though I may be lost I still wander

And my home is wherever I’m free.

As I whistle alone, just a man with no phone,

I hope that you’ll smile back at me.

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Today

We are lazy-eyed romantics

Who, slothful, deign to leer

At sexy ghosts like future, past,

But seldom now or here.

We seek the worldly pleasures

That we, in moments, lack

Knowing we once had them

And hoping they’ll come back.

And like the perfect lover

The present sees us gaze

At a future that will never come

And long-forgotten days

Yet gives us still all that we need,

Supports in every way.

I write so we’ll requite the love

Of the miracle that is Today.

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Too Soon?

You’ll remember me

When you smell the sun

On the earth between your toes

In the forest we

Explored as kids,

Where the tree we planted grows.

You’ll remember me

When the bulldogs win,

When you wear my number 9

When you see two kids

Sitting in the stands

Though the lights no longer shine.

You’ll remember me

When you hear our song,

The one I chose to sing

When I kneeled down

And I gave my voice

‘Cause I couldn’t buy a ring.

You’ll remember me

When our children smile

And ask you for a snack,

As you trim their crust

And recall that day,

When our baby hugged you back.

You’ll remember me

When the house we built

Is serene in Autumn’s glow,

When the snow comes down

And its quiet like

It was eighteen years ago.

You’ll remember me

As our thin white hair

Falls on our Yahtzee game.

You’ll remember this

And so much more

If you’ll just tell me your name.

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