Woe Is Me!

Woe to you, humans!

For you have so many different faces,

and wants

that urge the desire

to have so many different things at once.

*

And woe to you, morons!

For you judge people

based on their hair color,

and whether they are fair-skinned or dark-skinned.

*

For you value people

based on what car they drive to work,

or whether they own the latest gadget,

as well as their profession.

Since when

a Blackberry or an iPhone could define its owner?

*

Shakespeare once asked,

“What’s in a name?”

Now here’s my questions:

How can you tell that John is richer than Wagiman?

Or,

why did you say Michael is a much better name than Eko?

*

I thought

nothing defines a man better

than his mind

and his attitude

* * *

I told you already that I’m terrible with poems.

Sorry, it’s a terrible poem. I know it is.

And I guess I’m taking things too far here.

To write “man” is quite stereotyping and overgeneralizing.

Then perhaps I ought to address that to myself instead.

So,

Woe is me!

For I told people

that we shouldn’t judge people

based on their appearance

but on what’s inside.

Yet I did the exact same thing myself.

* * * * *

P.S. A related random story will soon follow.

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

This is a poem which turns out to be an inspiration for the title of Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

*

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

*

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

*

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

*

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake:

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom and be lost in me.