Other Worlds
What is it that we seek
In all these other worlds?
Is it just to escape
The mundane parts of life?
Or is it to break the rules —
At least for a little while
At least in our minds.
We enter these alternate realities
And admire their creators —
Maybe even hope to make
Worlds of our own one day
They give us new ideas
And play out our fantasies —
Safe little games of fiction.
But where is the guidebook
For those of us who really
Want to change the world —
Not just imagine what we want
But make it real — “make it so”
Not just to make a nice world
In our heads, but in reality?
The hero’s journey is always hard —
To fight the things that are wrong
That everyone else seems to accept.
What they never tell you is that
The hardest part is coming back
To the real world, after you’ve seen
The peace and beauty of your own soul.
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Other Worlds is a poem I wrote many years ago — came back into my head this morning as I was thinking of another poem that was forming this morning as I woke up. It starts like this
The Real World
Projected images on the cave wall
Become more real than our own world
For a brief moment in time…
{And these words I add now…}
Take us away from ourselves
Others watch with us
And this world we all understand
We think so anyway
Share in common an experience
Created just for us —
Hot sex scenes on the screen,
Mass destruction later on
A desolate world left to some
To others their new fantasized reality
Some can’t accept it
And are destroyed in the end.
We all come away with our own thoughts
“He killed kitty!”
Stuck in mine.
Lights up and we part ways
Back to our own spaces
Our own cave walls
To play out our images
In our dreams
And wake again today
The breeze blows in the trees
And the sun shines down
And the birds sing
Breathe in and out
Enjoy a cup of tea…
Isn’t life pleasant…
But his nose is buried in a book
And I clack on my keyboard
Separate in our thoughts
Not sharing this life
Though we share the space.
At least I’m aware of it…
Then we converse,
Talk about our own kitty,
He complains about dog farts
And the cold..
“Turn up the heat”, I say.
I suppose it’s a life.
At last he notices the wind
As he starts to make breakfast
Scrambles the eggs,
Adds the salt and pepper
Same things as always
It’s never different…
The dogs share my eggs
As he goes back to his book
And I turn to my screen
Off to read the worlds’ thoughts
See what is happening
Elsewhere in the real world….
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