Tag Archives: peace

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Clarity comes to Us All Eventually

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Am I such a threat,
such a fear to you?
That my place in this world
must be abated and subdued?

Do you fear me less
when I articulate
myself better than you
or do you fear me
more, in certain circles,
because I am finally
on to you, and I know
just what to do,
to make it all
untangle.

You try and wrangle my words
and even my thoughts to
fit your disposition, as if
by smiling at me, it will cause
me to smile back
in submission.

First you blinded me,
then asked me why I was blind,
then stole the cane
from my hands, struck me, stripped me
then tripped me,
sending me on down the
road, to do my time.

Yet I endured, and even though blind,
I saw with a clarity
greater than the sighted man,
ever could
and came to pity him
and the thought processes
he called an enlightened mind.

Pitied him for the man he
thought he was.
Pitied him for the dark legacy
he had wrought
and the future
to come from it.

Pitied him that he would
never know a moments rest

Pitied him because anger was
all he knew.

Pitied him for the surety of
his place in this world
and at his disappointment
when his end finally came
and my tolerate
smile turned
into
a triumphant grin

by Philip Wardlow June 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, Stories and Story Excerpts

Order is in the Bar

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A cold fire burns within and without in the world I dwell in, and they all dance on a head of a pin while I sit wondering why they dance at all, and what tune is playing as they dance, and do they even hear the music that they dance to because it’s god awful.

I press my ear to the wall in my hotel room and I hear their gibbering muffled words coupled with occasional laughter. The snatches of conversation never seem to come into focus, never revealing anything but more mysteries of a world that I could never truly see. It’s one of lofty laughter and sick sorrows, and fears reflected off a dirty black mirror sucking in all the known. In that room, desires are unfurled, as regrets are thrown to the floor, forgotten, with lessons never picked up and put in their proper place upon the shelf.

Chaos reigns in that room as Order has a left a long time ago and gone for a drink in the hotel bar down below.

I pound against the wall, over and over.

“Hear me!” I yell at the peeling paint.

“See me!” I yell through the thick crumbling plaster.

“Let me into your party!” For I need talk sense to you savages, or at the very least strangle you all completely so I can finally go peacefully to sleep.

The music abruptly stops. The mumbling, murmurs, and gaiety subside.

Have they heard me? All is quiet.

Then there is laughter all around, and a banging back upon my wall as if by a hundred, a thousand, no a million hands, and one clear word shining through it all of being called a “FOOL” right before the music resumes, louder and more raucous than before.

My fists clinch, eyes becoming intense as dark deeds flood every particle of me. Destruction reigns, blood rising as my blue view begins to fade to a pale red creeping to a dark hue.

Then comes a knock at my hotel room door.

I walk over, looking through the peephole and it’s Order, eye to eye with me.

I fling open the door ready to give him peace of my mind.

“I thought you might need a friend,” Order says, grinning with whiskey in hand as he walks in, bringing all his new found followers, never ending, flowing in, filling my room complete.

Order’s smile is infectious and I smile back as the cold fire within, burning, begins to warm.

I laugh loud and hard, bringing out glasses for everyone, filling them, with Whiskey, passing them out fast as I fill them

“A toast, a toast” I say, with a flourish of my glass, “To Order, my friend, for your time shall come as will our own, so drink, drink and turn the damn music up and lets have some fucking fun!

by Philip Wardlow Feb, 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

What Dreams may Come

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One day I will know me,
where my dreams and fancies
meet my real reality,
where veils are lifted
and the stars cease
in their laughter
of me,
where seeming gods
big or small
give pause
and throw me a wink
and nod my way
as if to say,
you finally get
it son
you finally get
it, now move forward
and flourish.

by Philip Wardlow 2019

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Tensions and Potentials

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Funny how a day plays
Out
From all the rest
In
the moment of a crash
Between
worlds never knowing
Upon
the other’s shoulders
What
weights they bear in silence
Who
they fear in ignorance
Why
roads are traveled
When
all the open paths
Array
around them
Pulling
at heart strings
Confounding
A mind conflicted
toward
either violent ends or
after
internal deliberation
to
peaceful meditation
where
past sins
are
finally
put
to bed
And wistful dreams
meander
in now a
serenely
quiet
head.

By Philip Wardlow 2018

GiFs for your Entertaiment, Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Something has Died

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I feel the husk of its dead shell
rubbing against my innards.
Grating,
poking
No piece of it breathes
yet it prods.
Reminding me it’s always
there.
Just sitting.
Drained and desiccated,
where once
it was full
to overflowing,
now nothing
but decay
absence
a void filled
only with
black matter.
A negative life if you will
The blackest of
black
Gouge out my eyes, then tape them
over times ten and
throw me in a capped well
type of black.
Something has died
in me
And I don’t know what.
But I want it back.
Alive.
So I go in search.

by Philip Wardlow 2017

 

Inquiring Minds

What is in that 2%

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chimp-chess

Neil Degrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and consummate educator of all things Sciencey… 🙂 –   Stated that in regards to DNA,  chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas share approximately 98% of our DNA.

OMG! Think about that  98% and that small difference he exclaimed!

Humans can do complex math, humans create and design great edifices, travel into space, perform surgeries, compose music, write books,  and create wonderful works of art…etc.

Chimps can be taught sign language, to count, perhaps to ride a bike,  or create rudimentary tools to accomplish a task. But that is where it ends for them. (does it? I ask)  That has been the height of their evolution. (is it? I ask)

He then went on to speculate and ask,  what is in that  2%  of our DNA that bestows these great intellectual gifts upon us humans yet denies the Chimp access to it?

What is in that 2% ? 

He goes on further and asks what if we were to meet aliens from another planet and our situation was reversed.

What if we were the chimps and we had only 98% of DNA in common with that alien race?

How SMART would they be compared to us?  Our smartest Mathematicians on the planet would be drooling idiots next to their children coming out of 1st grade.  Their pre-school children would probably intuitively just know Algebra like our children know  1 +1 .

(That possible fact, if it were to be one, would shout that we are not as special in this universe as we like to think we are but I digress..)

What discoveries have they already made while we are still banging rocks on the ground to open a nut. Wonders I imagine, he speculates ( I am paraphrasing).

YES, a interesting concept BUT Neil never goes the other way in his thinking.

True they might know wondrous things, mysteries may be revealed to them beyond our chimp like comprehension.

BUT at what cost?

violence

How many wars have we waged on this planet? How much violence has  been done against another in the years we have lived together? We are the least savage and the most “civilized” and the smartest animal on this planet?

So what of those aliens. Does their intellect exceed their civility and universal morals ? Or does it keep pace?  Are they violent, bigoted, sexist, apathetic, a specist (yes that last one is an actual problem here on our planet).

My theory is that it’s a mixed bag by all probability. Meaning, one set of aliens out there are well adjusted and smart as hell and way above us intellectually but are very civilized and peaceful with very minimal violence towards themselves and their own planet.

While another alien race out there is smart as hell also but the most corrupt species and apathetic, greedy,  power hunger seeking race you will ever not want to encounter in your entire lifetime no matter the curiosity you might feel of wanting to know if life exists outside of our blue ball a planet. Keep them distant please, thank you very much.

WILL we get better ourselves. WILL our intellect still exceed our morality like it has for millennia after millennia. Will we end up that alien race that goes out one day into the galaxy like Columbus sailing from the shore of Espana to the West Indies claiming lands in the name of Queen Isabella subjugating, raping , enslaving, and killing the locals?

I would like to think not….but meh..who knows…I am always surprised on a daily basis at what depravity exists in our world on Earth.

Time will tell if our DNA wins over our hearts and tells us if that 2% makes us better or worse.

spaceship

 

 

 

Inquiring Minds

Peace? What’s that? I want a piece

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2013 International polls as reported by  BBC news shows that the world , including a significant portion of Americans, deem the United States as the greatest obstacle to peace:

It seems most Americans are not aware that these Polls came out.  Apparently none of the top Five news organizations here in America ever mentioned it back in 2013.

See original online article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-25496299

 

Threat

 

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Chaos also dances

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Chaos also dances~

 

Angels may dance on the head of a pin

but no one  has ever told you that their partners

called Chaos are dressed in drab coats

disheveled and dirty with drink in hand, barely

able to stand as they try to keep up with the music.

They fling obscenities to the wind, raucous and rank.

Who invited them to this dance?

Did they come of their own volition or did they

receive in the mail  a nagging invitation,

with promise of delicious Hor D’oeuvres served on

a golden plate to soothe a palate knowing only

seeming hate.

There is only so much room on this floor.

Only so much of  this crowd that this world

can allow.

This pushing, this jostling, as elbows fly.

So, I shall take my drink and withdraw to

the balcony, stepping into the

cool night air.

And toast the moon and the stars, wishing I was

anywhere but here.

 

by Philip Wardlow 2016