FOREVER CONTAINED
by Michael Langston
My mind is a prison…
where my spirit lies
confined.
It seeks escape…
but is forever contained;
It looks for rest…
and finds none;
It seeks to know…
but is kept from knowing;
It longs for peace…
but none comes:
there in darkness,
apart from love,
held by chains it cannot break.
ON AWAKENING ONE MORNING
by Michael Langston
I think I could lie and sleep forever,
Forsake the world and its light of day,
And enter upon the darkness of an eternal night;
Let the sounds of wakefulness at last disappear
Till only silence remains;
And consciousness gone and thought passed away,
Fall into the abyss of a deepening sleep…
Until sleep becomes as death;
Existence extinguished, all life put out,
Become the nothingness from which all things arose
And to which everything must pass:
To awake no more to see
The glaring light of another day.
A WISH
by Michael Langston
I wish I were a child again,
Could pass the way from now to then.
I’d view the world as it was before,
As it ought to be, as it is no more;
And all of time could pass me by
And leave me there…and go and die.
SOMNOLENCE
by Michael Langston
The clock ticks.
The light shines.
A door slams.
The wind whines.
The hours pass.
The day goes…
It’s bedtime now;
Take off your clothes.
Let darkness come
And sleep descend.
Dream of flowers,
Rain, and wind,
Of ages gone,
Of times to come,
What never was…
What won’t become.
Lie in still and silent form;
Let outward darkness be.
Become the flowers of your mind
Within the black infinity.
Create the sun, the moon, the sky!
And inward color be.
Flowers growing, there to find,
In the darkness see.
A VARIATION ON A THEME BY MOSES
by Michael Langston
In the end, Man destroyed himself and the earth.
2 And the earth was empty, and without life; and stillness was upon the face of the dust. And the spirit of Death moved upon the face of all the world.
3 And Man said, Let there be life: but there was no life. And the evening and the morning were the last day.
4 And it happened that when Man had at last subdued the earth, and had brought down his dominion unto every living creature, there came a time when each perished; even unto the last of them:
5 Great whales, and every creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly; grass, and herb yielding seed, and tree yielding fruit; fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven; the beast of the earth, and cattle; and every thing that creepeth upon the earth:
6 Till the last had passed, and all were gone, that only men and the rocks of the ground should be left.
7 And Man watched and comprehended not.
8 And Man said, Let us make earth in our image, after our likeness: and let us have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
9 So Man created earth in his own image, in the image of Man created he it; towns and cities created he them, and all things that hath not life: and every nonliving thing that moveth upon the earth.
10 But every living thing was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth.
11 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, and every man:
12 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the whole land, died. And nothing remained alive: all they that were on the earth.
EXISTENCE
by Michael Langston
The wind blows…
and everyone knows
the air
is there.
PASSING OUTDOORS ON A SUMMER NIGHT
by Michael Langston
Passing outdoors on a summer night,
Past the unnatural world of man’s creation,
Entering the company of nature’s various forms
Has with it, always, a sense of placid contentment.
Quietly sitting, I hear the lessons of silence;
Around and before me, the teachings of darkness:
Away from striving, merely being;
Away from thinking, only knowing
A sense of perfect enlightenment…
Not to be found elsewhere but in nature.
VARIANCE
by Michael Langston
The flatness of water suggests itself all over:
In rivers, in puddles, in lakes, in seas…
All over…over and over.
And the world is at variance with the flatness,
All around…around the water:
In hills, in slopes, in fields, in trees
That surround…surround the water.
(The thinness of air is different from both.)
The blue noonday sky projects itself downward
With the greenery of summer at variance with its blueness.
The movement of insects disturbs the still twilight.
The dance of the fireflies is revealed in the moonlight
By the darkness of night at variance with their radiance.
Above, the stars vary with the black silence.
ON THE DEATH OF MY GRANDFATHER
by Michael Langston
The setting sun tomorrow rises;
The summer’s green each year renews.
While some things change to different guises,
Nothing in nature we chance to lose:
The moon each month in thirty days
Returns to its each separate phase;
Water lost falls back as rain,
And grass if cut grows high again.
Such things as these did nowhere meet
An end for us to see;
The stars, the same, alike repeat:
What is…can’t cease to be.
And if some things appear to die,
Their different guise escapes the eye;
Each thing thought gone, not noticed, stays
As does the moon…in darkest phase.
DAY TO NIGHT
by Michael Langston
Light recedes behind tall trees;
The evening sun is set.
Daytime sight and color flees;
The night will soon be met.
The sky receives the night’s soft breeze;
Its veil of blue is lifted,
Revealing skies that set minds free.
A veil again is lifted.
Sense now spans the distant stars;
The day has passed to night.
The world leaps out from short to far
As if by gaining sight.
Sounds abound in dark and grey;
The quiet of day is broken,
Revealing thoughts no words convey:
Forever kept unspoken.
Truth Makes Us Free 