Of light, and lightlessness

I

What is death … ask I …

But a great feast to which the only uninvited guest remains life herself …

Severally, a man will battle the temptation of fleeing desperately from the light...

Because often, the light blinds the man‘s eyes;

And the man‘s skin burns under the revelation of his ineptitude;

And the man can hear no more…

Dwarfed by others’ successes,

Shadowed in the glare of his fellows’ greatnesses,

A man may nearly succumb to the thought,

That he may enjoy cool shade from the harsh sun of life’s competition...

For in the light, intelligence is the lore of choice…

And the man is unlearned in such elevated tongue...

And the man pinches his cheek with rage, for his lips fail his mind, every time his opinion is sought...

So there bows the man...

Painfully aware of his incompatibility with the light,

With the gods that abideth therein...

Wishing he could cast away all vain ambition to emulate these gods,

Recede to the corners of the familiar environs of his own dark mediocrity...

Yet he knows…

If he must grow, if he must ever have hope of finding meaning in his pitiful life...

Then he must stay in the light; Blinded, cowed, dazed...

But stay…

II

Perhaps more than the lack of money itself,

A poor man‘s greatest pain is in his inability to be a man:

To buy his beloved that valentine‘s gift,

To give his little girl that fancy doll...

This is his ulcer…

The one that devours his dignity before his very eyes…

III

I am the son of three worlds; of fields, of fire, of fire-flies...

And you are my brother:

Yet you reject me,

Like a black pebble cast into the sea…

Eternal oblivion is the world‘s reward to the un-excellent man …

This cold, cruel world will hardly show a grain of sympathy to the man who isn't ENOUGH …

Tall enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, charming enough, religious enough...

The man who isn’t enough of a man…

The ‘un-accomplished’ man will be taken and cast into the dungeons of ridicule and scorn,

 And the noose of nobody-ness will hang from his very neck...

Then, the world ---- beastly and vindictive;

Will lay a table flowered with the cutlery of the man‘s dismembered limbs …

 Draped with the cloth of his skin...

The beast will stew his mind and his spirit in the pot of ingratitude...

Then the meal shall be served…

 And the man‘s soul shall be devoured by fangs unkind...

And the day the man was born will become an endless, moonless darkness...

And the man‘s gods shall forget his name...