Robert Strzalko's Blog (15)

     The screaming grew louder and louder as Jeb McCulloch approached the stable.  He expected most of the town to be asleep but something was taking place, something horrible.  The last time he heard someone wailing with that much pain and agony was when he was on the front.  It brought back terrible memories for him, memories of a man yelling and screaming as he begged for someone to shoot him and put him out of his misery.  No one did.  They just laid there all night beneath the stars and…

Continue

What must it have felt like to be him?

He was right and he knew he was right

And yet he had to say he was sorry

To his persecutors who were wrong

From behind

She’s one of the most beautiful

Women I’ve ever seen…

Continue

Eleven days of silence

Is what she said

About the Buddhist monastery

In Tibet

She and her two companions

Had just come from

Hair legs and braided hair

Sleeping on concrete

Not speaking even once

Which for her

Must have been

Excruciatingly painful



She couldn’t really say

If she got in touch

With her inner self

But

The spiders creeping

Across her pampered flesh

Fascinated

Her more

Than the… Continue

I was thirteen

Almost fourteen

My brother, fifteen

I didn’t know about Maugham

Or that he had written there

I didn’t know about Cézanne

Or that he had painted there

Changing the way

The world would see

I only knew

That it was good to take in Paris

Through the eyes of a boy

Bursting with so much passion

That it would soon be impossible

For me to contain it

In any reasonable way



I didn’t know anything… Continue

Dawn is coming

Sublimation

Bullets

Say

Splatters in the wind

Spreads its wings

On

Starry nights

When

Solitude descends

Leaving untouched

Wounds buried in my heart



Ocean songs

Echo

Ripple

Across anemone floors

Glisten

Like yesterday’s pictures

As we move

In worlds unformed

Cry for release

Die to be born

Again and again

They call me



On the prowl

A sleek, black… Continue

Shot in the back
As she fled from the bullets
Gasping her last breath
She collapsed to the ground
Her baby crying
For no one to hear

Sitting as a stoic lion
Transcending stars
In the light
Of dreams

Swimming as a fish
In the autumn
Of the deep
Crawling
On
Ocean floors
Touching
Coral reefs

Streaming from above
A
Moonlit ray
Escapes my grasp
Obscured by
A billion reflections
Of eons past
When
Whales were spirits
When
Seas were young

Walking through time

Thinking of you

Receding from yesterday

Turning towards tomorrow

Waiting

For

The sun

To

Chase away

My

Desperation

Inspiration

Reverberation

Pushes me forward

Past

The spawn

Of

Living carnage

Wallowing

In

Decadent squalor

Contained

Restrained

Some call it

Freedom





Dreams

Have a color

All their own

Swirling colors

Shake my… Continue

Water nourishes

The hungriest of soil

Fills the sap

Of tallest trees

Water released

Through the clouds

Pours energy into me



Water comprises

Most of my body

Water covers

Most of the earth



For what is life without water

A desert?

What is my soul without rain

Barren?



Water cleanses me

No matter how dirty I am

Water quenches my thirst

No matter how thirsty

Water heals me

No matter… Continue

We stood at the airport

Knowing

The moment was near

That I would fly away

And we would never

See each other again



Your face

The image of you waving goodbye

Tears flowing down your cheeks

As I turned to look at you

One last time

Languishes in my memory

The way only foreign things can

The pain of leaving a place

You know you can never fully understand

As an outsider

And yet

It is somehow part of me… Continue

As I look through the lens

Searching for

The right reflection of light

To illuminate

The shape of her face

A leaf falls upon her

The moment is perfect

I take her picture

As she swoons in the devotion

I lavish upon her

Demurely modest and yet

Yearning to be revealed

As the secrets

Of all women's souls are



They're not really secrets

Meant to be kept hidden forever

They're more like treasures

Waiting for the right… Continue

The hot Malaysian sun

Beats down on my bare chest

As I glance up from Hemingway's

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

To see an exotic woman

Walking towards me

Through banana trees

Her breasts

As full as the ripe coconuts

A man is cutting from high up in a tree

With wide swaths of his machete

As a curious monkey watches



I don't have my camera with me

It's in the hut by the mango trees

Overlooking the lagoon

There is no protection from… Continue

Isn't it phenomenal

That a guy no one would hire

To teach anywhere in Europe

A guy who worked full time

At the Swiss Patent Office

Was able to outperform

The best minds in physics

At the most prominent

Universities in Europe

To such a degree

That we don't even remember

Their names today?



One man working alone

Outside the intellectual establishment

That had rejected him

Came up with the most astounding

Theories the world… Continue

War





Poverty





Famine





Disease





Pollution





Deforestation





Overpopulation







Children sick with hunger

Famished

They lay in waste

Distended bellies

Lifeless eyes



Millions live this life

Every day

If you can call it that

It's more of a living death

That comes too slow

To a world that doesn't care

It's too preoccupied

Too easily… Continue