Note: Mixing it up today with a poetry post. It’s darker in tone, but speaks to things like vision and responsibility, and what happens when they are absent. 

The City is Contagious

Empty streets, crowded alleys
not a soul to be seen
unless you know where to look.
Change is in the air
traveling as hushed whispers
and uncertain glances.
An invisible feeling is
ever-present in the hearts and minds
of those who call this home
casting shadows darker than before.
Sinister plans disguised as hope
and catalyzed with fear
abscond with our ambition and
weaken our resolve
as we feign ignorance
to avoid responsibility
for the decay and depravity
that has crept within our walls.
A black mold plaguing our foundation
that is hiding in plain sight.
Without vision cities perish
consumed by it’s residents
and reduced to ashes.
Unable to sustain life
it is abandoned and forgotten,
the ruins standing as a testament
to our pestilence.

Searching
for a land far and distant.
I’ve glimpsed it in lucid detail
before my eyes met the morning.

I’ve felt it in every chamber
of my restless heart that’s searching
for meaning,
for dreaming,
for respite from this bated breathing.
For dancing,
for singing,
for nothing short of life fulfilling.

This vision left burning bright
keeps me searching every night.
Until I wake from this place keeping
Me trapped in this state of being.

Copyright © 2012 Cole Bradburn

We all get to a point where we keep doing what we are doing, largely because it is what we have been doing (insanity!).  It’s habit, it’s ritual, it’s even escapism because it feels easy and safe.  Then comes your moment of reckoning — is this what you envisioned?  Are you truly creating art, or just adding to the noise on the internet?  Are you using your gifts and uniqueness, or suppressing them to conform to a perceived standard?

Once you have asked these questions, there is no going back.  You can try, but it will remain in the back of your mind creating discontent until you reach the point where you give in to what is scary, but right.  Here’s what I’ve been wrestling with recently:

(more…)