What can be categorized as pure indifference
And have teeth so as to rake the flesh
From a servile conscience?
These things coexist
In twisted arrogance
They rankle and conspire
What of indifference, though?
Can it really be the absence of preference?
Isn’t that a preference itself?
How can one sense the madness
At the edge of reason
And not be born into it?
One does not simply stare into the abyss…
The very mechanics of our existence
Are irrevocably changed with each
Passing choice and each passing chance
The fingers of time massage out the years
And fate is a romantic notion
Proffered by those whose mortality
Needs meaning and fruition
The grave ever advancing toward us
Each in our frailty
Hurtling to meet it
The emotion of that fear and fascination
Blindly steals itself into each transaction
And purifies the stasis of stagnancy
We cannot absolve ourselves of our slavery to self
It is our defining characteristic
We are not as we were made
We are continually molded by choice
And chance
Copyright: Brian Pellerino 2006
Want to review or comment on this poem?
Need a FREE Reader Membership?
Reviews of "Left of Self"
Reviewed by char lee (Reader)
Reviewed on September 19, 2006
you have methinking...
if we are continually molded by choice and chance, then maybe, just maybe there is a chance that responsible choice can change the "shape" i'm in. methinks....hmmm...methanks
Interesting concepts! Choice is the key word as you so deftly say we are molded by choice. Not so much chance, because it is our choice that determines what chance may do.Excellent poem!
Questions, unquestioned discoveries, and answers in parable and rhyme…. This collection records a journey starting with a 1960s retrospective and the first man on the moon, moving to a new millennium welcomed in with a terrorist spin, family crises,
The songs and art in this book are about our collective emergence after the pandemic and trauma of the last few years - comprised of 5 collections: World as Refuge, Where We Live, In Our Hands, Rhythms of Change and What We See & Sow.
Share
Print
Save
Follow
if we are continually molded by choice and chance, then maybe, just maybe there is a chance that responsible choice can change the "shape" i'm in. methinks....hmmm...methanks
Love Tinka