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Three short Lyrical essays By William B. Burkholder

Posted on September 12, 2008

3 essays

FALLIBLE MAN

I am not to be emulated nor looked up to.
My journeys have been ragged and lonely.
No, do not emulate me I would not wish that on even my worst enemy.

Who am I to be looked up to? No one really, just another soul, another man with angers and ignorance’s; lacking at times, the foresight and wisdom to realize my errors.
No, do not look up to me.

Faith is good, but few deserve it, few have earned it in its purest forms.
To have faith one must give their all in trust to another.
I am just a man; do not put your faith in me.

There are those who will gravitate to these things, insecure in themselves.
Emulate that which is true, those things that mean something. Emulate the kindness and Grace of God, and in that Man has no place, save for attempts to reach God’s perfections.

Look up to those things that will make you whole, in body and spirit. I doubt even the physician in being a proper choice. Lookup to that, which is correct for you, be willing to change that perception just as your awareness changes; so should your loyalties.

Faith is the ultimate exercise in trust. Who is it that you ultimately place your full trust in? Answer for yourselves and then, reassess. How many relationships have come and gone based on this mirage of faith in another? Find your faith in the truth of all things, the simplest of these things being that “Man is Fallible.”

The idealistic flap of patriot Banners

Intellectual blindness has beset the learned man and woman.
The elevated standings of empty tutelage,
Dark opinions, ruminations of fear and loathing cast in bitter arrays at the hand of
political pundants, preaching their versions of refusal and closed eye.
Middle and lower class citizens, groveling under the feet of the uppers,
The have mores raise their noses and close their eyes, again, and again.

Where is vision’s cane? Tell me please; so that I may retrieve it and place it in the hands
of these poor souls who have no regard for me, or my brothers and sisters.
Let me place it gently in their hands and whisper…
”At what point did you realize the loss of your soul, the loss of your humanity?”

These misguided, self serving egotists succeed at their narcissism, because we allow it.
Our silence to the injustices rendered, misconceived as the ability, the power to carry out their uncaring practice of alienation.

This power wielded irresponsibly. Our servants at the helm steering for the shoals.
Passengers all, we must take the tiller at last and finally carry this vessel to calm waters.

Our dead brethren, expect this of us… NO, demand this of us, the idealistic flap of our patriot banner demands this of us.

Broken Keys

I once stood at the dark gates of suicide; playing with lock and latch.
I took the time to survey its dark form. This gateway with bloody hinge, rusted with flesh and bone. I reasoned at the time, that I was the architect, the designer of this passage and in a way, I was.

I had at least fashioned the key, a homemade escapade of foolishness, wrought on the irons of heartaches beginnings. This beginning… aye, there is a story in itself, but best saved for another time.

I look back now and recall those moments, when all seemed lost, when each movement for me was a feeble assertion at a masquerade of normal. When one lives in the extreme limits of Love, they are sure to fall, and fall hard.

However, this is not really about then, it is about now and what I was able to glean from that experience. In the simplest of terms, from one who has been there… “It is not, nor ever will be that bad, where walking through that gate will ever be an option.

Epiphany comes at the strangest times. I guess those moments of enlightenment come at the most important times in our lives. When our vulnerabilities open our minds and hearts to the reality and truth of things. The truth of our weaknesses.

Such things pry open our eyes, unplug our ears, forcing us to hear and see the reality of our mistakes. I would like to think that I am not a boastful man, however I am proud of my humility, Ha! If that makes any sense. Because if it were not for that, My eyes and ears would have stayed tightly shut and I may have just taken the step through that dark opening.

So maybe being proud of it is not the right term, grateful might be a better coinage to use here, for I am grateful for each and everyday, each and every sunrise that God gifts to me.
I claim no stake, no monopoly on heartache. It is a forgone fact that it exists in many lives.

Our ability to rise above ourselves, to rise above our heartache and self perpetrations.
My message is that EACH of us have those strengths. We all have the ability to snap those keys off in the lock, rendering that horrific passage inoperative.

A simple sunrise sixteen years ago taught me this, allowed me to break my key and get to the business of living. Truth in the fact that my convictions, and my lessons are mine, not to be forced upon others, but simply shared with the sincerest of hopes that a light will come on for those in pain, just as it did for me.

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