Pendulum: a Poem

Pendulum

What is it that we are —
Are we beast, or are we best?
Why’s the journey go this far?
Why do we live beyond the rest?

Did we deserve this pretty view?
Do we enjoy what we have known?
Sending checks and gifts in lieu
Of flowers we have grown

Lovely pictures set in frames
Little girls, with tool and brush
Before monotony sets in
Before the scowl, the soft pink blush

Now hanging linens out to dry
Day by day, the rot sets in
While in the silence, wonder why…
We wonder what we could have been

We feel it dredging through the air
Suspicions rise like morning sun
A thousand times we’ve paid our fare
And pay for what we’ve never done

If you judge me with your eyes
And you can scorn me with your heart
Yet cannot see me for my soul
Then we are better off apart

So I will walk along the sea
And rub the salt into my skin
I’ll pay my penance to the waves
Why did I ever let you in?

I think I’m better off alone
I think I’m happier at bay
I’ll be anchored to the tides
The Pendulum e’er sway

And in the storm, I’ll batten down
While in the sun, I’m drying out
And in the fog, the in-between,
I teeter ‘tween my faith and doubt

If security is rare
And insanity is rife
My love can do no good!
I thrust my trust into my knife

Did you see the headline hit?
The people screaming all through town?
Undulate ‘tween calm and fit
The Pendulum comes roaring down

Now the axis is as lost
As we are lost amongst the throng
We have finally lost our way
It’s not allowed:  What’s right, what’s wrong

We have one road that still has turns
We have one book that still has rhymes
We have one path, one force-fed truth
Swing Pendulum; the bell still chimes

(C) 2016 Raina Maris Thelen.  All rights reserved.