Author: Michael Angelo

In a way, it feels like I’m reaching
to grasp the Sun
as though it were a bead of my own blood.

Amber skies in tranquil hours
pass me by—or rather
I pass them in my haste.

There’s work to do, obligations to keep,
my feet smoke with exhaust
and air is just something I breathe,
not taste.

There’s no time—and yet
there’s so much of it.

The people of this world
are like fishes in a plastic bag
submerged in the sea,
capable of feeling the currents
flowing just behind
the thin obscuring membrane
we call priorities.

But whose owns these priorities?
Where did they come from?

A man is bound to his family,
a mother to her children’s needs,

but outside of nature’s dictations,
to what, truly, am I devoting myself to?

Ideas, large like economies and governments.

Ideas are the iron frames
that support our anthills,
and we all march, dutifully,
believing in the power of their ore.

But again, who mined the minerals?
Who assigned them value?

Is fool’s gold fool’s gold
without the entire artifice of a society?

We rush for gold because we believe in it,
and our walls don’t collapse
because we believe our frames to be true.

This is the ache in me, however:
I see the walls.

I am unable to deny
that they do keep me warm,
warding off the claws and beaks and teeth
of gales and storms—

but for some reason
my eyes do not just stop
and rest on their hard surfaces,

they also see right through them,
and bathe in bold bleeding rays.

And though I rush to the offices
of my life, imprisoning instincts
in duties, I am
slowed, just enough, to notice
the breadth of this natural wonder
called Life.

My priorities are transparent,
simply unable to hide this incredible sea,
and try as I might to love the ideas
given to me,

the great pulsing Heart in the sky
bleeds its vibrant vitality
through my pleading fingers.

These are the good days,
the days of hunger,
of cold night;
when the air in the sky
is the frost breath of your lungs.

These are the good days,
the days of numb;
when the sights, sounds, and pleasures of the World
blend into a fading echo,
and the only thing that exists
is your dream.

These are the good days;
when your dream gains such sharpness,
such pure and honest luminosity,
you grow moth wings to soar to it—
desperately, obsessively,
burning body and soul alike
in combustive winds.

These are the good days;
when everyone’s forgotten you,
and you’ve forgotten being forgotten,
and the vastness of world is centralized
right there in the tiny space
that is your workroom, your bedroom,
your chapel and penitentiary.

These are good days—be grateful.

For when they end—and they will
end—and you have triumphed
over the darkness in yourself,
you will sit comfortably atop a hill,
and overlook

the savage wilderness of former days.
A tearful smile will form along your face,

and you will mourn.

Praiseworthy is the raven
perched atop the tower.

It stands alone, away from a life
that runs as smoothly as a river.

The raven could dive and avoid
the icy gales that pull at its feathers, but

the raven chooses otherwise.

It never forgets what it means
to stand proud.

The raven is no crow;
it does not roost in company.

It never succumbs to even waters,
never has its color washed away.

The raven is no dove.
It is truth.