A Place…
by Odin Roark

There’s a place
we’d all like to be.
Call it utopian.
Call it ethereal.
Call it…

Imagination?

Oh, forsooth!

Why must so many
avoid such focus as a PC undesirable,
vying instead for the “real,”
that preordained “right,”
by mainstream suffocation.

So, c’mon…

Tell me about the real.
Is that what dogma pounded into our heads
is supposed to represent?

Is the “real” really void of imagination?

Oh, so many cringe in their boots,
feel as though a wedgee is strangling their potency.
Just to think about something that might be pure,
unadulterated imagination is too far “out there,”
the quintessential buy in,
a some kind of copout?

Copout?

Consider where we would be as a species
without the full thrust of imagination
more often than not,
making far more sense than reality?

Such is the plight of the artist,
having to live in a world of imposed factuality as other see life,
knowing there’s more for the mind and heart
to massage, reform, consider as a step forward in discovery,
a rung on the ladder to greater self-realization,
for both artist and the patron.

After all…

If you truly want reality,
the kind that truly means something,
you must accept there’s nothing real
about ignoring one’s own inner truth,
that undeniable fact of self that if disciplined,
has no time for the frivolous pandering to
what others say is the true “reality.”

Quite a ride this…

Rising above the fray,
considering the ethos of self,
the rewards of accepting faults
along with the excellence of being who one is.

Some might attest
such an attitude too highbrow,
too elitist.

For many of us, however
such a position is just the beginning,
the move into the landscape of sentience,
void of hesitation,
a naked stance before creation,
finding there’s nothing to hide,
nothing to make excuses for,
nothing to convince and lure one back to…

A place called "mere existence."
A place no conscious person should live and die in.