Really loved this Jude, don't often come on to comment nor (shamefully) to read other peoples poems as I use the site to deal with life's awkward turns of which there has been a few in recent year! Sunk deep into this work, probably didn't fully understand it but I'll be back for another crack. Keep safe mate

Jeff

well painted and expressed verse poet

Extraordinary images "birds frozen in flight" ... "children's mirth jammed between peanut butter cookies" ... "halo of indifference"...a great read! Best, Elizabeth

"mystified but still alive"
Great piece!

Jude,

Much power of the written word flowing from your pen - brilliance here!!


Best regards,

Lance

This one captured my imagination and my full attention from title to last line. It brought to mind that movie with Robin Williams in it about the museum that comes to life after hours. Sometimes we should just bring all our lifes to a standstill and just have a look at it item by item before proceeding. Very thought inducing write you offered here Jude.

fee

So be it-s unique time~frame shared by all () filtered through by you this un_stilled calculation .~. Ted

Mine eyes have seen the glory... Yet these images of yours are disturbing.

Ron

Can I borrow your glasses?????
pax A
sigh :)

There are times when the world seems to be mindlessly meandering and we are the only one with a creative thought or the desire for things to fall into a logical order and move with a forward motion. So it seems it is in these times; foolish decisions being made on our behalf that keep us in cement boots, a prisoner caught in an altered dream. We are perplexed, like a spider hanging from a thin strand who has forgotten how to weave its web. The world seems to be made up of Thorazine injected masses, shuffling through the days without a clue, lacking the desire or responsibility to live life itself. Powerful poem, masterfully crafted. There are some excellent lines here.
Take care,
Sherry

well said

Outstanding Jude....this is a keeper!

The imagery you use leaves me undone - the power of your lines - well done, Jude.

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

And them we read "...a gap of unanswered prayers..." as humanity expects not one Amen at the end but...granted!

Georg

Jude, I wanted to say that these, "children’s mirth jammed between peanut butter cookies," were my favorite lines...but then as I continued to read, there were others, like, "where babies continue to be born in a halo of indifference,their celestial wanderings foraged by beasts of blurry lands,"...this is a masterpiece---

"Life, I'm after, still or flowing; the capture of fleet-footedness by hands, heavy-shackled, as if to feet of iron or clay" - and you've given it to us here, Jude. This is immense, in concept and expression. A new fav, I reckon. I love the stillpoint of the Voice, lounging and inhabiting the quiet of the viewpoint of "unanswered prayer": it shows the active (as opposed to passive) involvement of his/her place in the picture, moving things along by conscious mental and emotional engagement with the whole through a form of meditation on what is observed (or "prayer"). I love that the human forces of energy are either "creatively misguided" (though doubtless well-intentioned) or flying free but directionless, unable to be consciously steered, like hot air balloons. I love that the wide-open tablelands of green pastures (that should be for the succour, grace and exploration of the sacred in every newborn) are being grazed instead by strange, cosmic, genetically-modified wildebeast. And your last three lines just have an incredible resonanance for me personally right now: I have just come back from Bath, where there has been an art installation throughout the city all this year based on Bladud's Pigs (Bath became a Spa city of world renown because it was first noted that "leper pigs" right back in the Middle Ages were healed of their skin disease when drinking from the springs in that geographical place). Life-size pig sculptures have been featured on every street and have been creatively painted to represent a character or a name that gives them a special dimention different to that of "pig-ness". These pigs were thought to be a mess and an eyesore by the strict urban planners, but the world has taken then to its heart and just ADORES them. However, they have now been taken away, rounded up, sold-off for auction and scrapped... it's like they and the creative ideas they represent are being sent off for slaughter. The public is desolated to see them go. Perhaps this is a little cameo of what it means to be thus touched in uncanny and mystical ways, to remain mystified by all that pertains to be the glue that binds us (or the shrapnel that blows us apart), but very much alive to witness, observe and be a part of, this silence of being that roars as it ravages it's way through our conscious and unconscious universe...

That is to say, I love this! :)) PorKy xx

Another fine mess we have gotten into haven't we..This poem pretty much has the feeling and tempo of what is going on right now. I find your words to be so profound and mind altering but so right on.
Much peace, love, and light,
Amber "V"

Jude you have the most creative mind. I just love the way you say things.

Things only seem motionless when you are a few light years from Earth. The rest of the time... things move around at a frenetic pace. Existence is ravenous, which is why it ravages the universe. ~ Sara

Wow Jude! The last three lines are show stoppers. Loud applause my friend.
Hugs,
Marcia

How well diorama describes your premise,and oh how I love your last 3 lines,brilliant is too mild a word!needs to be read many times...

love this--my favorite line: "children’s mirth jammed between peanut butter cookies"