The Meaningless Surface of Life

 

We are soldiers of fortune in armies

of memes, floating on rivers of

high-flown illusion: the past is confusion

that the future redeems. Days are not hours

but frameworks of seeing,

not kernels of truth but mere mirrors of being.

 

My room glows and fades

as each day retreats into merciful nightfall,

and deception defeats such a mundane transition

with infinite blackness,

universal laments beneath layers of sadness.

 

A muddle of errors with none to regret,

in futile pursuit of goals beyond reach,

with the camel's unhurried rythms beset

by riders at ambush in African sun,

caravanserai mirage of a heaven not won.

 

Please tell me to walk on a blade-sharpened wire,

make me choose between the living and dead,

and I'll make you hold my feet to the fire:

look into my face, your anger to sell,

then bring me the Devil's playthings from Hell.

 

Chris Hubbard

Cumbria

2016