Jan
11
2002

Be In It

by Stephen Messer

I understand more about the world as time moves on,
but also realize that I am less able to change it.

And as my understanding grows, so does my frustration at trying to comprehend it.
And as the understanding comes full circle, I realize how little I understand at all.

But should that make me stop?
Should that make me not want to change the world?

I’ll change it any way I can
I’ll change my world
my perception
my being
my circle

I’ll change those who want to be changed by me
Those who want to know me
who want to contact me
I can make people happy
I can make them laugh
I can make them sad
I can disappoint (and I have)

But yes,
I’ll still change the world

Just by being in it.

posted in Personal, Poems, Time | No Comments

Dec
23
2001

Victory

by Stephen Messer

it’s a pock-marked landscape and victory is claimed
no-one really wins among those who play this game
I see the suffering never ends, it will continue on
since religion will still be there, even when capitalism has won

and they call it democracy reigning supreme
and exerting it’s power over those lowly beings
and what of the people at the heart of it all
the people whose lives have nothing in store

I know very little about where we’re going or have been
but the human spirit is alive, the human being
and religion are the roots of all evil I know
religion causes more suffering than any wanton foe
because foes are all based on differing ideals
and on man’s insecurity in the realm of the free

and free we are to express what we say
but that hasn’t changed the beauty of the day
the beauty of the night or the life that we lead
and what is it for us to say who we have freed
and under what circumstance their lives may be better
because the human race is just an animal race
no matter what we claim to be

and this super power in which I don’t believe
it’s exerting its force on everything I see
and doesn’t represent what you or I think
only corporate profit and a stymied power to think

no, nothing’s changing,
we might have won a war

but I’m still glad I voted for Gore.

posted in Poems, Social | No Comments

Dec
23
2001

Arrogance

by Stephen Messer

As we incite the hatred of the world
our arrogance defies their pride.

We have the wealth,
they have the customs;
We have the power,
they have the conviction.

We have imposed that power,
and our impersonalized corporate conviction,
on cultures who respect and desire the wealth
but hate the arrogance–
Hate the fact that we are who we are
because of arrogance.

Why don’t we understand?

As we incite the hatred of the world
our arrogance defies their pride.

posted in Poems, Social | No Comments

Dec
23
2001

Rushing

by Stephen Messer

From here to there I’m rushing
Without the time to see or touch
The things I see along the way,
The feelings that greet me through this day
And it’s an incredible place I drive through.
Nothing is there for me.

All I focus on is where I’m going
And I forget where I’ve been.
If I were to take the time
And visit the places along the way,

I’d find that my destination
would still be there in the end,
And so would all my friends.

But what’s the rushing for?
Why do I chase this time?
It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

This making haste
and saving time seems
just a waste of everything.

posted in Personal, Poems, Time | No Comments

Dec
23
2001

Worn Out

by Stephen Messer

It’s easy to paint a rosy picture
with words and actions
that don’t represent what goes on inside.

I live a life that seems so full and active
but inside I’m worn out and very tired.

It’s been a long hard struggle
and on with it I’ll go.
And as good as life is, I’ll never know
the freedom that real weightless, mindless,
responsibility free existence can provide–
That’s something that was in the youth
I left behind
two decades ago

But the rosy painted picture
perceived by those around me
pre-empts any strike against
what I feel inside.

I know how hard it is
to keep on living this life,
but I’ll go on,
and I’ll go on,
and then one day
I’ll die.

posted in Personal, Poems | No Comments

Dec
18
2001

Plans

by Stephen Messer

You can spend your time waiting for life
to happen to you.
Is that what you’re going to do?

Or do you sit and make plans for better times?
planning to make things better,
and waiting for them to get that way,
instead of enjoying what you have now?

Is that what you’re going to do?
I wonder…

It’s a brief, brief moment I have with you,
And what are you trying to do?

You’re gonna talk about how things will be better…

Will you talk about plans that were made?
the half page of scribbled lines upon a book?
The plans that will never happen?

Pathetic, it seems
a shame to waste this time.

The apricot trees and the driving rain
and the wheels turning,
and the trucks are burning,
and the clouds go on and on and on and on.

Life is now.

We can always move on to a better place,
a better time,
a better future,
but the better things only come from within.

And I see it that way now.
For life is now.

I don’t see how you can be there, planning away,
wasting your days, planning away,
planning for a time when others may say
“look, he’s doing better.”

But it isn’t that way at all.
It’s just appearances,
It’s just the way you feel.

Now.

And those plans…
are you going to take them
with you when you die?

Just thought I’d try…
Just thought I’d ask…
Life is what you made of plans,
and how you fulfilled them.

Not how you make them.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems, Time | No Comments

Dec
14
2001

Mortality

by Stephen Messer

Mortality draws us closer
though to what we’ll never know
And I sit here and wonder
as this wind continues to blow

a cold dark wind on the night of my birth
and what can I say,
but Hell, I’m on this earth.
And I don’t know where I’m going
I just know where I’ve been,
and even that’s sometimes a blur
and sometimes seems like a dream

and life just goes and leaves us all to be found
Nothing is as it seems
Nothing abounds

But here in this moment
All I know is that love is real
The feelings that I have for you mixed are forever there.

posted in Introspection, Metaphysical, Personal, Poems | No Comments

Dec
10
2001

Theocracies

by Stephen Messer

Religion is the root of all evil
Theocracies abound
and death is everywhere they meet

the death caused by
immutable thought-starved wretches
is all I know of religion

wretches caught up in a theocracy
lacking spirituality
blind to their own devices

to divide
to conquer
the religion sets them free by enslaving them
to the desires of men
of people

but not to the will of god

posted in Poems, Social | No Comments

Sep
14
2001

Afraid of Not Living

by Stephen Messer

It’s a warm and beautiful day, though how can one take the time to notice
I’ve been rendered numbed, unable to go out and face it
It’s a future that I’ve always feared, that was always possible;
I’ve resolved myself to accepting it is forever incomprehensible.

I’m less afraid of dying than I am of not living
Of foregoing this freedom, whose fragility I can see now,
But I’m more afraid of losing what I know and love
Than I am of cashing out now, and going to heaven above

I witness the pain of the thousands standing there
panicked by the pathos of a misguided millionaire,
It is the sight played over and over in our minds
Of five thousand unprepared souls, freed before their time.

I’m less afraid of dying than I am of not living
It never was very easy to start the process of forgiving
I’m less afraid of dying than I am of not believing
Reality struck hard today, I’ll go on about my grieving.

posted in Poems, Social, Songs | No Comments

Sep
11
2001

Numbed

by Stephen Messer

My body lies not beneath rubble
and I feel no pain

Numbed

The spirit cold
and unresponsive within

Numbed

Those we love
Our thoughts are drawn to

I try to make connections
to find a reason to be
anything but numbed
half a continent away

Then, the reason hits me
The connection is there.

I am human too

Only humans are capable of this

Human?
I am ashamed
Though I never could have.

Numbed I remain.

posted in Introspection, Poems, Social | No Comments

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