Picking Lilac’s [and four other poems]
1. Least Likely
The past is stone
The future is unreal
The present is eternal
#1340 [8/2005]
2. Satan Offers
Satan offers freedom:
At the expense of mans
Stupid confidence.
#1341 [8/2005]
3. Arrival
Love arrives in the present,
Gratitude in the past
The futurevice.
#1342 [8/2005]
4. Fill My Bell: Freedom
Something I like about freedom
With its echoing sidekicks called:
Liberty and pursuit of happiness:
It is not for free you know
It never was, never will be
Even though it seems like it should be.
I went to a grocery store yesterday
Bought some food, to fill my belly,
Oh I know it’s not all that exquisite
Discriminating, of an example,
As simple as it is, it is:
No one said I couldn’t: freedom!
#1343 [9/2005]
5. Picking Lilac’s
When I was a young, and then became a young man, I picked my grandfathers lilacs, –smelling them as if, as ifthey were golden apples of cinnamon golden apples of chance. I didn’t know why I did at the time, I just did, saw beauty in the simple: like me.
‘Were would life lead me?’ I asked: picking those lilacs, as if they were dandelions, in the back: backyard–: where in deed, would it lead? There I planted my seed I guess [unknowingly].
When I was young, and then became a young man, I wanted to become: grow to be, turn into many things. Things people laughed at: said, ‘Impossible,’said: ‘you’re from there: nowhere.’ They’d say: ‘…you’re too much of this,’ and ‘not enough of that. so don’t expect to live your dreams…’ I was the jest of it.
I was silent in most all, I recall: most all of this; but thought I was better than that: that ill advice, that free-flung dogmatic wisdom: negativisms.
And so with books, adventures in mind, energy and chances, I traveled, got debt-free, I became, little by little the man I dreamed, planned, schemed: expectations of a dray dead voice, always haunting me. Little by little the man I planned was coming.
Jumping every hurdle in my way; burying pride in a watery grave; burning all those negative reminders off my back [who I was and where I was from, where I should be]: I planted new seeds. And became the person I wanted to see: little by little.
After picking those lilacs so many years ago, I learned, it takes time: planting of the seeds, watering of the plants, cultivation, watching it grow, like my grandfather did so many years ago. He yelled at me for many things, in our extended family days: but never, never for picking those lilacs off those bushes in the backyard; now I know why: Harvest Time.
#1344 [10/2005]
See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
