this is expressed so masterfully, jude. your continue to inspire.

can't help but sigh, "yes, but passion has its price!" and sometimes the soul is just plain weary of the burden. sometimes, when numbness overwhelms, that "local flea market of undetectable circumstances" draws one in...
alas, we always return to "the passion" for our life-breath, whatever the cost...

an engaging, wonderfully thoughtful write, sir poet.
please be well,
carolyn

I liked this. Written from a place deep inside which knows the difference! Thanks for the expression.

You are right , with out some kind of passion for something , what would life be like. Not too much....M

The three stanzas explore the power of passion in complementary ways. Very strong and contradictory at the same time, because you somehow show us that passion is the essence of life and yet you make us want to know what it is like to look at life with dispassionate eyes.

I love the imagery in the last stanza, especially:
"sold in a local flea market of undetectable circumstances,
where only the poor of heart venture
and the inanimate converge "
both visual and philosophical.

Axilea

A passionate piece Dissipates to wisdom in old age.

Ron

Jude you are a brilliant Writer. I loved this piece. Passion give each of us vivacious personalities wanting to taste all the world has to offer.

Without a steady flow of passion life will have no taste

Oh yes..am glad I visited your Den..missed your work..
will return..
exceptional as always..

V*

...words of truth...you pen with excellence...and of one...passion...ignite a flame.
very well written Jude.
John

well written and so true--passion is definitely the key to so much-one of your best poems i think!

Hey Jude, very well articulated! Passion can lie dormant for awhile. Then something as little as the sight of a ponderosa tree can ignite passion again. I like "life is a wasted curriculum." Made me think we're all taking graduate classes in life and we're never too old to attend the college of life. I also like "unskilled imagination." Imagination, when not nurtured, can break loose into confusion inside yourself, even in your sleep. Sleepwalking through our alloted lifespan is worse than being over-stimulated.

What an intriguing poem. Thank you, you made my day. --Kathy

"without passion life is a wasted curriculum" - how true are these words, for we can learn nothing unless ignited through passion. This first stanza, to me, shows us the difference between passion and fear: passion liberates and makes safe; fear brings into bondage and impoverishes with its sense of futility, clumsiness and failure. Second stanza, light and love are made a travesty of their very selves without passion. And what a powerful image conveyed by the fleamarket of the third verse, where the most creative power on earth: the limitless vision and expression of our own hearts and minds, is bankrupted or paucified by the apathy and disinterest of those who are already "dead" in their passionless state. That "mantel of appearance" you speak of can often be the overriding control of the status quo to whom "passion" is subordinated and subjugated. We live in societies that, after all, prize the cognitive rationality of the intellect and reason over the "higher" intelligence of the emotions and the heart...

I love this look at the tenets of passion, Jude. There are those for whom passion flows from the inner being like a stream in full spate, removing all boulders from its course; others have passion that arises as quietly and as gently as a bubble from within their souls - and who seem to find it disappearing just as elusively without the ability to grasp it; and still others for whom passion is a closed-circuit, a one-off, Johnny Cash "Burning Ring of Fire" that is hermetically sealed and is as the ouroborus, the serpent who swallows its own tail.

Just as an editorial note, your use of all lower case in the title made me think this would be an ironic write, written in a dispassionate tone, and a poem about a LACK of passion. In that way I think it works very effectively as a header, cos it picks up on the very vivid visual of the disaffectedness in the final lines.

Jolly good show! :)) Hope you're well. Kate xx

You express profound truth in your verses here, Jude. Thank you! Love and peace to you,

Regis

You make every word count in this masterpiece Jude! Without passion life is not lived, it just exists like a bump on a log...Good to see you posting;-)

I agree. Passion is the light that illuminates the sunrise and gives our days and lives purpose. I am going to guess that very little of substance has ever come out of a rut. Passion can encompass many moods, as any poet surely knows. Nice work, Jude.
Take care,
Sherry

i agree, its that spark, flame and enthusiasm that fuels the momentum of dreams and ideas.

Exciting poem of truths...yet...when corrupted, passion could also be evil. We must learn to temper ourselves. Always noble thoughts you pen!
Micke

Without Passion I can't imagine what the world
Would be like
To live a life without passion is unthinkable!
Beautifully writing and expressed thoughts
A passionate write!!
Peace Love And Hugssss...Morning star

Without passion I would be a shell of nothingness. Your words give pause for great thought.
Blessings and love,
Susan

We must have passion in all and everything that we do. Without it we are nothing! Great write, Robert!!!

Sandie May :o)

Passion comes in many guises. From Christ's Passion, anger, a feeling for hollywood love or lust, or even a passion to own another person.
As soon as we conceptualise something it stops flowing, static or dead...

So true Jude,, This gives me much to ponder,, A poem written with passion indeed.
Christine

Interesting thoughts...When the passion for life is gone then all passion is gone.

There is passion in your words, Jude, thank God! Beautifully penned inspiration - and love the word, "inscrutable." Remember that from "The Elephant's Child," a tale in Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories." :) Thanks for the memory. :)

(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.

Wisely expressed and well meaning, passion is what makes love and living worhtwhile. As always you capture the very essence if your topic and present it brilliantly. Well done Jude,

Fee

A fine way too look at it..
Ron

Hi Jude,
This is a quote that I have on my dating site, "I feel that you have to live your life with passion, for passion is the center of your soul."
Without passion, (for me) there is no life! I am passionate about everything I do, or I don't do it! It is truly that simple. To regain passion back into your life, hmmm well that's a whole other story. I say one must start with something that sparks them and let it grow.
Much peace, love, and passionate light to you,
Amber "Vivianna"

You are right Jude, passion produces our best, lack of it is unbearable. Great poem.

Withou passion we wouldn't have had Beethoven, or Delacroix, or Hanibal, or Neruda, or Mother Theresa...
Without passion there wouldn't have been Magellans, or Copernicus, or Abraham, or Schweitzer or the Crusaders...
Passion is the heart that pumps blood into the human universe to make it alive!

Georg

so true.........
but finding one's passion is sometimes an expedition........pax A

We each need to find our passion in life...for without it, life is senseless.

Without passion
Does the search for it become an obsession
Or constructions. . . .
Of conclusions.
Do we relate???
Or escape???
Doug

i enjoyed this work as it reflects true life that way too many live. life without passion is not life.

randy