Manufactured Stress; Prayers for Peace; Ilumun No. 1

Manufactured Stress

I.

Manufactured stress creates false anxiety
to do their work

They watch through one-way glass
as you tire on the exercise wheel
first patented generations ago (on mice)

Add enticers to help you
Concede you prefer their bidding

Soon I hear you blubber
it was your idea all along

Your iluraq ¹ say they inherited positions
on the grind from our ancestors
Long to believe you carry Tradition
when proudly raising an Indigene flag

If history began today
what would anthropologists observe of you?
What do our children see?

Smile for their cameras

II.

Back then I mopped floors
tried scrubbing away the old stain
of muddy feet trekking to the mouse room
A kind of one-way mirror

They didn't see me

I saw them emerge from their watch room
One paid the other for a bet made over you

He cashed in
when she said they could make you spin fastest
to the beat of their drum

 

Prayers For Peace

The wind carries prayers for peace

In winter Prayers sting like the north wind
meet exposed tear-stained cheeks

Tears freeze and are wiped away
Prayers are heard

After the cold we go to the water
Where Prayers do not meet deaf ears
Alone we cannot send the ice to sea

Our faith is measured when everyspring
what's frozen becomes dangerous
rots and is sent away

 

Ilumun ¹ No. 1

For Chuna

We are the ones left behind
to carry on the principles
they taught
teach us still

We are to cling steadfastly
to the virtues
lest we forget
and make ourselves and others
suffer in our forgetfulness

We are to live the perspective
And by our lives show the way
for the ones we leave behind

Love: It's all about Love