Poesis

In memory of Henry Mancini and Kurt Cobain

who--each one in his own way--rank among those people who express
the depths and heights of the human heart's yearning and suffering
in the rapidly vanishing days of joys and sorrows,
gains and losses,
pleasure and pain,
love and futility,
triumph and tragedy--
in the midst of the mysteries of life and death.

"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness."  --Blaise Pascal

I shall live without safety in my own sweet madness,
As I leave the blood-lust world to its primal feed;
Till time that gives and takes all goods and evils, joys and sadness,
Shall sever my last life-line to let it bleed.
I shall shine supreme and fly up high from the darkest low station;
I will feel freedom in the flow of broken-hearted blisses.
I'll love soft strains and big beats, harmony and wild unkempt creation--
Sounds and words with wings and caresses, stings and honey, fangs and kisses--
Though I cannot devour the cancers that torture each individual and nation,
And I find the river still so wide and the shore so far, my best try misses.
I will make music of magic, and lyrics of fire and acid and of beauty and love,
So that even the cruelties and injustices of the world
Shall sing of their bitterness and still sound out sweet in song:
Although, too, they must feel more poignant and sorrowful below the silence above.
In my own sweet madness I'll still stay life-happy while heart-weeping,
Free within chains, loving even when unloved, stardust restrained but strong.


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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP, aka Mr. Poet--
Before I became PoetWithCancer, aka PWC--
Written on Wednesday, June 15, 1994
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved