driven

By Roberto Lavidez

the sun 

blocked out 

by smoke

the streets

littered 

with debris

the dream 

of utopia 

ends in

squalid horror

where lives 

are turned 

upside down

the will 

to confront 

and change

these realities

failing  

to consider

evil 

in the world

and corrupt

human nature

attempting 

to be born 

in new reality

staking everything

on a formidable

gamble

speaking out

for understanding

and compassion

tracing out

the feeble hope

that suffuses it

no matter how

people might

damage the truth

a position

contrary to reason

flying in the face

of ancient history

encumbered

by messiahnism

unafraid of the

consequences

of pursuing

a vision

from quite

different

intellectual

perspective

always believing

that words

are more

powerful

than munitions

shattering the

deceiving mirror

of fact

a stubborn

philosopher

with rebellious

intention and

desperate effort

to give body to

man’s most

clairvoyant

dreams

driven by a

powerful force

that protects

the eyes from

the blinding

flash of the

obvious

©robertolavidez2013

a stranger

in his home

by Roberto Lavidez

the existential

threat of evil

a springboard

into the abyss

that floats

in a mixture of

fascination

and dread

cataclysmic battles

in a synthesis of

the whole civilization

the external world

in the historical

context 

of domination

and subjection

is beyond man

struck by

a horrible feeling

of choking and

by anguish

not being simply

consigned 

to the fringes 

but is virtually 

a stranger

in his home

seeking to wrest

what is concealed

unknown

uncertain

unclear

filling with reality

things empty 

and hollow 

in appearance

perpetually shaking

the ground

with determination

to bring thinking

closer to the sky

mortality

and immortality

a utopia suited for

imperfect creatures

in an endless

exchange of

pain and pleasure

there prevails

a clearing 

of what veils

in a violent

resurgence

of struggles

enabling

the world

to open up 

and come to rest

in an intimate 

place of strife

where silence

can only be heard

in deafness

©robertolavidez2013

immeasurable

by Roberto Lavidez

a man

subsisting

on what

is humanly

bearable

resisting

his own

extermination

is killed by

forgetfulness

aligned with

the forces

of darkness

beneath

the whirl

of appearances

an irreversible

turning point

seems

particularly

blind

a chaos of

menacing

shadows

allow the

immeasurable

evil

to submerge

the world

a condemned

burial site

swarming with

ghosts from

the past

left

in constant

anguish

about their

destiny

unable to grasp

the dignity

that is proper

to man

now dragged

into an unequal

conflict

in the sudden

eruption

of crisis and

callousness

an inevitable

catastrophe

and disorder

spreading like

an infectious

disease

staving off

the outcry

of innocents

in the encounter

of reason 

with desolate 

landscape

and oblivious

sun and sea

abandoning

the dawn

of great hope

and expectation

turning its back

at the lone

survivor

slowly being

drowned by

the incessant

wave of madness

©robertolavidez2013

strange world

by Roberto Lavidez

running

the risk of

creating

new difficulties

our world

is becoming

very strange

and not exactly

reassuring

cluttered with

non-essentials

blinded by

abortive desires

apocalyptic

moments

of the fog

closes in

all rather

hallucinatory

and somber

disappointing

the hopes of

the unfortunate

who suffer

every imaginable

calamity

nature’s wrath

sputtering with

inarticulate rage

swimming against

the current

even against time

the path of tears

oozing out of

victim’s eye

unable to

protect oneself

against sudden

squalls

resulting in

merely a waste

of life and

other things

of life

and then

as is often

the case

after all the losses

are sustained in

perpetual disasters

trickery

reveals itself

in the end

paying honour

to the immortal gods

responsible for

repetitious vanishings

and reappearances

recollecting the

misdeeds of people

that kept occurring

arousing resentment

at those who

begged for mercy

as if their source

of misery is being

washed away

floating in peace

with all the debris

of the old

©robertolavidez2013

restless eternal

by Roberto Lavidez

the diversity

of things

an appearance

unable to solve

the riddle

of the coincidence

of the opposites

as though

restless passion

were seeking to

express itself

under the breath

of terrible storm

the hidden face

of a beautiful dream

a nightmare

overwhelmed

by flood

or starved

by drought

doubt and despair

reflecting a crisis

the smallest grief

never allowed

to be detached

and forgotten

not through

erudition

but through

experience

an implacable

torrid love

without shadow

without escape

without shelter

existence

against existence

plunged into

strange universe

beyond ridicule

or affectation

the feeling

of adventure

the irreversibility

of time

discovering

many things

which concern

the eternal

against returning

to the state

of arrest and

fixation

of the ancients

to the deliberate

intervention

of malicious men

or demons

the chronic

condition

of the civilized

the cycle

of conquest

extermination

and revenge

hanging on

to the view of

dissonance

necessary to

the harmony

of the whole

©robertolavidez2013

incoherent fables

by Roberto Lavidez

notions purely

transcendent 

and lacking 

explicable

connections 

have diminished

circumstances of

benevolence

everyone pursues

his own way

unsettling as to

disrupt the contours

of new identity

the conquest of

the earth has

arrived

from the sea

of undifferentiated

attributes of an

unarticulated 

situation

we hear whispers

walking in 

nocturnal

processions 

toward

the flames

inexorable

and inescapable

ponderous 

accumulation of

incoherent fables

distorts  

the agonal

courage

that presumes

a righteous anger

and a just use

of strength

obliterating all

enigmatic alterity

suppressing the

dimension of

the unconscious

that deals with

something

so sensitive

something

so sober

so austere as

an ancient prayer

steeling others

from becoming

emotionally 

involved

as survivors tell

stories of terror

brutality 

and illness

of filth

exhaustion and

starvation

time capsules

offer slices

of history

showing people

to hold back on

telling the truth

so as not to

upset others

and dwell instead

only in the

trivialities of life

nourishing 

stubborn

superstitions

refusing 

to shake

the pillars of

ancestral belief

to protect the

conspiracy of

silence

as one takes

the place

of a god who

has no regard

at all 

at the

profound 

disorders

of the soul

©robertolavidez2013

uttering the 

unexpressed

by Roberto Lavidez

trying every chance

that offered a hope

for peace

stirred up some

latent doubts

colored by some

long-standing

antipathy

perceived by

a mind blinded

by sudden panic

clinging to its own

dreadful reality

instrumental

in generating

a pathological

outcome

between itself

and the world

of symbolic

experience

every meaning

engaged in a

hermeneutic

exercise

will dissolve

like a cloud

and fall down

like rain with

a boundlessly

growing anguish

uttering prophesies

with frenzied

bodily convulsions

by bringing war

to an end

with countless

death that the

world would

soon forget

echoing the

equally chaotic

inner world

swinging the

indifferent motion

of a pendulum

refusing to relinquish

delusions and

hallucinations

precipitated by

unexpressed sorrows

at the voiceless

pit of conflict

fearing

to say anything

because everything

is unsayable

©robertolavidez2013