Through My Horn-rimmed Spectacles: A poem

Hello world. Has there ever been a period in your life when you just got worn out trying to understand everything that happened around you? You know, trying to figure things out via cold and rational means? You know, I've been there and, frankly, I'm happier where I am now. The truth is, science will never be enough as a means to understanding our world (particularly the one inside us); neither will its cold, analytical and critical methods ever provide, when applied exclusively, the complete joys that can be derived from the wonderful phenomenon of being. This was the inspiration for this poem. I hope you like it and I hope it inspires you to live a fuller life, enjoying every single gift that God has given us... especially the ones we can't explain in diagrams, flowcharts and equations.


THROUGH MY HORN-RIMMED SPECTACLES


Colour is a mere selective emission
Of electromagnetic energy
And the taste and aroma of a home-cooked
Meal is nothing but biochemical interactions.
Through my horn-rimmed spectacles
A loved ones touch is mere sensory perception,
Relationships are sociological necessities
And love? Love is hormonal hyperactivity.
Through my horn-rimmed spectacles
This world is an asymmetric collection of facts
And though these are not tinted, A Dark Place.
Through my horn-rimmed spectacles
I cannot read beyond the text or
See beyond the grave where this
Brilliant biological machine must decay.
Everything is a watery, bitter blur. And life?
Life is pointless.

Over-familiarity: A Short Essay

Hello there. How are things going? I'm posting this essay because I believe there are many out there who can identify with it. If you're like me, then you've probably enjoyed feelings of wonder or admiration or even awe when experiencing something new or gaining some fresh insight into something "old". Whether its visiting a new place, lying in the grass, breathing morning air, eating some exotic fruit or falling in love, we will almost surely admit it was a sweet, spiritual experience. If that is true, then perhaps you have also known the feeling of gradually losing these initial internal stirrings and then settling into a state of indifference. It is this state of Sensory Complacency that leads us to a place of eventual blindness. There are many reasons we may become de-sensitized - stress, needs, desires and so on, but I have found that the most

common culprit is, in my experience, Over-familiarity. Einstein said:

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

.

OVER-FAMILIARITY


Familiarity is a good thing
As it makes for safety and intimacy
But OVER-familiarity is a dangerous thing
Stripping Creation of its awesome beauty



The first time I was here, I thought it was beautiful. The scenery, the salubrious breeze, the birds flying so close by. All most enjoyable. All most spiritual.
But today I am frightened. Frightened because my journey to this place, my climb, did not fill me with excitement and expectation that soon the climb would be over and I would sit atop this mountain that I would have, once again, conquered, to breathe the air of God, to behold His marvelous creation, to sing a new song, write a new work or to just revel in the experience.

Today, the climb was (and I dread to use the word) routine. Every step perfected with practice. Not contemplating the mysteries of muscle function or the Providence in the friction between my shoes and these concrete steps giving me grip and preventing me from cascading helplessly and riotously into a broken heap at the bottom of this flight. Not considering that the air I now breathe so casually and automatically could, but a few days ago, have been caressing the cheeks of The Sphinx of Egypt or carrying the voice of a loving mother in prayer for her children. Not celebrating the miracle of life. Not growing and not discovering. It was like any other day I had been there I thought. But oh! Was I wrong! For every other time, each step had meant something, each breath so filling and every image captivating. I wonder how often we have allowed this subtle thief to pry into our hearts and to veil our hearts from the things truly beautiful; these elements of our world and the people with whom we share them. The sunrise, the breeze, the birds, the trees; the chatter, the silence, the stranger, the ambience.

Could I truly have used up all of its novelty? Perhaps appreciated and pensively considered all its elements. What about the distant haze, the sounds and colours? What about the grain of sand? No! There is no exhausting the surfaces upon which God has so kindly and deliberately inscribed, so clearly and indelibly, “ I AM!”

Toye ‘lanrewaju

Maybe

Like interlocking fingers
To be one with you
And like a symphony
To be a beautiful intricate harmony
Yet I wonder
Perhaps hands would rather warm themselves
Than lock in conflict of norm
And perhaps unison is the preferred arrangement
Of so small a choir of one.
Are these touches flippant merely?
These fleeting affectionate strokes so blissful
Caresses of vision broken by the slow flutter
Of smiling embarrassed lashes and flushed cheeks…
Raise my umbrella.
From this raining misgiving,
Shelter me.
Dodging now then jumping again playfully
In mucky puddles of unjustifiable fantasy
Till I find the sun from within
To soak me in the courage
To disperse this fluctuating uncertainty
And discover what may never be.

Nightmares

Unspeakable things mumbled through trembling lips
As your heart beats a terrified, mournful rhythm
Fast, doubling, then slowing, then doubling again
Threatening to burst from your chest.
And why do you sweat in the cold?
Numerous saline balls swell and fester on your skin.
Chilling, merging, then scurrying out of sight
Have they come for you?
You walked in your wake into their dark land of sleep
You are on their ground now
And they seek to keep you there.

Demons from your past you have forgotten
“What sort of man forgets his own children?”
What silky smooth sweatless brows glistening
Beneath rich black wavy hair. They tug at you left and right,
Weeping through crossed-eyes, over calloused cheeks and down Restless forked tongues and dripping fangs while their horrid talons Anchor your stained, neatly pressed suit.

Then there are those you dare not forget.
“What sort of man forgets to worship?”
And now in the shadow of their collapsing marble altars
Upon you. Scream. Scream now. You think.
But there is no voice and there is no sound
Because there is no air.

Your eyes flash open as you awake. Gasping.
Cast by lightning, damp with dew
In the wilderness of retribution.
Disoriented by the feverish irony of wet and hot.
It appears they are giving you one more day to live
In search of ever-elusive serenity.
But night will come at the end.

Fluid

The wind has blown strong.
The eagle has ridden along.
And with every bit of the carriers variances,
Her wings she adjusts and thus she advances.

The palm has fallen hard on the water
And has found resistance.
But only slightly as it is buried
In the same instant.

The breeze has blown softly
And has encountered bodies
But has gracefully embraced them
And then continued peaceably on its journey.

The earth upon which we walk
Has endured the trodding of many generations.
Yet the land is enriched by their mortal flesh
By patient but certain assimilation.

Man in his lifetime finds many oppositions
To his hopes, his dreams and desires.
But through the very many trials,
The wise man is made wiser.
The strong, stronger.

From Dusk To Dawn

From Dusk

The red of the rose and azure of the sky fade into a
Tasteless grey
And sight of all ruin is lost in the blackness that follows

This is dusk

Each time the sun sets
And night takes his stand
Let this come to your mind

With every passed day comes a Dying
Of the mistakes
And glories thereof



To dawn

The sky’s dull and dark is
Slowly but surely perforated
By an innumerable number of golden needles of light
To break into a glorious morning

This is dawn

Each time you see that light
Or feel the warmth of the sun
Let this come to your mind

With each new day is a
New beginning
Another chance to be stronger
And better

I Have Written

I have written because I can
I have held the pen in my hand
This work you now read is my creation
Greater than I, though, is its inspiration.

It has been poured out as it can be
Poured out as only out of me.
For it can flow out not the same from another
It would not be this, but some other.

But through me it has chosen to come
From the realm beyond into this one.
In my heart I perceived the message
And in my pen it has found passage.

This is the nature of artistry –
Conception following perception.
This is the secret of creativity –
Expression following inspiration.

Toye 'lanrewaju

PUDDLE

Mirrors set in concrete frames
Reflect passion and beauty
The flight of birds and the
Haphazard harmony of flapping wings
Of dives and dips
Glidings and Climbings.

Reflections of light and of shadows.
A window into the heavenlies
A testimony to Creation
A doorway to eternity itself.

Its surface ripples momentously
As my teardrops invade
One… by one… by one
And are absorbed
Forever
A part of me now a part
Of eternity.

Toye 'lanrewaju

Lies

Rife
Widespread and grafted into society
Unnoticed even when observed
Conversation, relationships… lies!

“Oh how nice to meet you…”
“Lovely house you have here Ms…”
“The thing about me is…”

Dulling the whiteness of the very fabric of society
Politics, schools, history, religions… lies

“I promise that on re-election…”
“This is the way it is… always has been…”
The civil war was as a result of…”
“It is the will of God”

Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!

But ah! To speak the truth,
It is inconceivable.
Yes, it is madness.
That all say, truly, what is within
And voice their intentions…

“This place is a dump”
“I am a thief and I want to swindle you”
“I am really a libertine”
“I want re-appointment that I might loot the more!”
“I am a false prophet”

Chaos, madness, lunacy
Isn’t it?

But what is it
To live in falsity,
In a world of lies?

Toye 'lanrewaju