Praise To Heretics
Praise be the heretics
who place the search for wisdom
over the power of tradition.
Praise be the blasphemers
who claim to have seen God.
Praise be the martyrs to holy fire,
their bodies piles of wood
meant to make society shine brighter
even from the ashes of their bones.
Westminster Abbey
I stood in the poet’s corner.
I was told to face the wall
until I learned how to behave
and write of better things
in proper verse.
But it did not work.
I had escaped the nuns
and their righteous fury.
Standing in the corner
was nothing close
to kneeling on hard stones
and the burn of the pointer
cutting at your back.
I vowed long ago
never to give in
to the whims of order
or reason,
and still fight,
and will always,
for my right
to say whatever nonsense
comes into my head
or dribbles from my pen.
2D Existence
A cartoon in two dimensions
can seem more life like
than the world you live in,
with its supposed four.
How bright the colors
and painted smiles.
Even if the motion is jumpy
and the plot a little thin.
I could live in those cells,
digitally made or hand painted,
lay on the jagged grass
and watch big eyed people go by
while angular birds carve
a place in the sky.
Life and Cinema
Don’t struggle so much
against the ropes that bind you.
The knots will be untied,
but not before the performance
has ended,
and you have played your role,
the prisoner in the background,
abused in semi-darkness,
a tinge of the forbidden and desired
in this fantasy of magicians
and fairy godmothers.
The heroes will pass by
heading towards the next scene
while you dutifully practice
well rehearsed moans and screams.
© Michael Szpakowski: 2015; paintings for children and adults. oil & charcoal on canvas // 14X18″
Light and Shadow
I saw the sun rise
from the Atlantic
while walking on
a beach
dark with crabs.
I saw the sun set
into the Pacific
from a park bench
along a coastal highway
while a disheveled man
shared the view
and an uneaten piece
of my sandwich.
In between and years after
I experienced both the light
and the darkness,’
and waited, at times,
for one or the other.
While we love the light,
there is part of us
that needs the night,
longs for it,
the peace it brings,
and the protection
from unwanted eyes.
Do not ask me to choose
between one or another,
for I am not pure light or dark,
a mixture, swirling,
with all that is,
with no time or interest
to change what I am.
The low hanging fruit
The low hanging fruit
are good enough.
They taste okay
and fill your belly.
There’s no need for a ladder
or to climb a tree,
and less risk of falling
and breaking a limb.
Just sit back and relax.
Let life be simple.
Peace, easier to achieve.
With eyes half shut
Watch strivers scramble
towards the great heights;
place bets on who slips,
and how hard the landing.