(Alexander Pope 1688 - 1744:
“Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast
Man never is, but always to be Blest”)

This illusion,
Pushing past our disillusionment
Like a wheelbarrow
With a flat front tire
And a belly full
Of promises,
Rolls on,
Unabated.

This elusive assurance,
A plagiarized
Piece of oral history,
Beats like a drum,
A heartbeat that never rests.

The endless repetition
Elevates our determination
Like the homespun hero,
Lifted
By hands,
To shoulders
Parading our right to righteous indignation,
And the belief that we are all,
Somehow,
Sure to be blessed.

This subliminal suggestion
Would, likewise,
Serve to levitate passions,
To incite the work-a-day masses,
To rise above mediocrity,
To break the bonds of slavery,
To know,
And truly feel,
Compassion.

This wellspring of dreams,
This fountain of inspiration,
Spills out through the
Narrow streets of time;
Its survivalist impetus
Flows ceaselessly to the edge
Of our naked perception.
This vision,
Made manifest
And perpetuated
By the personage
Of some unseen society,
Flickers illumination.
Provides
A garden of promise,
Tender solace to be
Carefully cultivated.

Pregnant starts
Interred in the earth,
Watered and
Gently coaxed toward the sun,
Nourished by the
Sweat of our ancestors,
And now,
By our own grubby hands.

This message,
Less the fruit of reality,
More the seed of desire,
Remains concealed,
At least,
Until the substance surrounding it
Is peeled back.

Our secret,
Well guarded,
Until the shell shielding it
Is cracked;
The liberating act
Exposing a penitent prayer.
A courageous conscience,
A positive thought,
Wondrous prizes to be found
At the bottom
Of a box of Cracker Jacks.

Like bones beneath the flesh.
The very matter
Of life itself, revealed.
The essence of our energies
Reduced to motivation
And sheer will!

This optimism,
Lays bare a catastrophic rift,
Serves only to contradict
The obvious savagery of man…
Vanquished
With the power of a smile,
Conquered by a lover’s kiss!

The ridged bridge
That would connect
Our flesh to pain
Sustains us on a daily basis,
But everyone knows
This bundle of nerves,
This corpus delecti,
Does little more than animate.

And I am inclined to believe
The holy men of old were right,
“None of us
Would hesitate
To skip the whole damn thing”,
Given the inevitability
Of that Eternal Dreamless Night…

Yet, by simply conjuring up
A transcendental wish;
We deny the ends of time,
The thought of something more,
A sweet antithesis.

How is it that
Somewhere deep in our
Synaptic tangle
This fundamental urge to nurture
Continues to exist?

We hint of love,
Of luck,
Of fame and fortune
Like presents wrapped for Christmas.

The lottery, rainbows, snow white turtle doves,
How is it
That these internal images
Still manage to persist in us?

The uncertainty of tomorrow
Is endured…
The inevitability of sorrow,
Abolished with a whispered word.

This ethereal delirium
Teases the senses,
Clings
Like sticky icing to fingertips,
A sugary confection drawn instinctively
To eagerly waiting
Tongue and lips.

Half expecting that
Sappy, happy ending
Seems to be
Embedded in our
Helio-twisted DNA.
Something patterned and pruned
Crossing generations,
Like hybrid roses and seedless grapes.

This ambivalent association:
Light to dark,
White to black,
Holds sway,
Where everything exists contingent
Upon the weight
Of its opposite.

Leave it to us
To name the sun and the moon,
To categorize and catalog
Our world,
As it has been perceived.

So too,
This intangible,
This timeless glimpse of God that we call “hope”,
Insists,
Albeit modestly,
On its own
Identity!




Michael S. True
3-03-10 last edit 1-13-13