Once

It takes no time
To go nowhere,
It takes forever
To go everywhere.

 

Johnny wanted
To run away as
Fast he could
All in peace,

 

Without reserve,
To live by rules
Mitigated only
By innovation,

 

For as long as
He could figure,
On being alive
To then believe,

 

It takes no time,
To go nowhere,
It takes forever
To go everywhere.

 ~Victor Imari (10/27/05)

Yogi Bera's Advice

The brightest star
Among millions,
Doesn't illuminate
The other stars.

 

 ~ The Shah of Athabasca

 

I've chosen Yogi Bera's advice,
I've done so more than once.

 

Like confessions on confetti,
I've felt most of my travels.

 

Where I didn't want to stay,
I moved on to places I knew:

 

If I could do it all again,
I'd do it in reverse by now.

 

 - Victor Imari (10/7/5)

 

 

Big Ideas

     Any old shplan might 
     Work with problems.

 

              ~The Shah of Athabasca

 

Any old thing you may
Feel can be made up

 

Of your very own life's
Dreams and desires,

 

Failures, triumphs,
You get the idea...

 

All those feelings,
Bound to collide,

 

On but one condition:
That they're allowed.

 

     ~Victor Imari (29/08/05)

Why Not?

         Truest love is the best
         Peace of cherishment.

 

                  ~The Shah of Athabasca

 

Between humility and humiliation
Lies a chasm, which cannot bridge

 

The tests of time are but forgotten
Like accidents over darkest nights

 

Filled with anticipation of horrors
Sprung from desires to change lies

 

Deep within the human condition
That challenges your self-dignity

 

To places where the atmosphere
Is familiar, but the people are

 

Not.

 

~Victor Imari (8/24/05)

To Ringo

Personally, I prefer some
Paranoia to the real thing.

 

     ~The Shah of Athabasca

 

When experience is aged expectation,
The truth is eclipsed by the unknown.

 

Risk is to belief as its merit is to inheritance.
None can be another; nothing is merely anything.

 

Freedom is more the offspring of discovering,
And letting go (of some truth, than its capture).

 

~Victor Imari (06/04)

Cupidity

Between desire and possibility,
Flows opportunity. Between love
And loss floats some disutility.

~The Shah of Athabasca

As far as eyes see,
What's lost is uncertainty;
Perhaps a tribute
Paid by the same torrent:

What mystery?
All the same, never fate be
Where hope runs dry,
At the mercy of dreams to die.
Perception is the public self
Don't you know:

Choice is God's gift,
And decision is our torment;
And time is that wheel,
Riding those divine railways...

'By the way, about that bridge...'
Might there be a single currency,
You think, over galactic years?
It is indeed too bad we can't deal
With all the world's ill in one setting:
All seven sins, in just so much time.

With all the visions,
And revisions...alas,
Indifference is the grease
That expedites our(downward?)

Spiral of despair;
Precluding the friction to obviate
Resolution toward repair.

The truly heard are
Not among the veritably haunted.
'There will be time,
There will be time'
Not to have to justify,

In place of incurable possibilities,
The impossible!
But to vindicate death
Is to love that dream

Through fiery muds
Of hell's delayed truth...
Conditional, or worse, arbitrary
Love (of life), unlike death (of love).

After all (the same),
Love is...where God lies:
Free of choices,
Silently sailing seas of choices.

~Victor Imari, 1997

Stray Doubt

Two wrongs don't make a right,
Though three lefts generally do.

~The Shah of Athabasca

Attached by a rope,
Borne into chaos,
So close nature's heart,
With sword in hand,
We cry, and try, and
If condemned forever,
The rope must sever;

Hardly remembered,
Free at last,
With pen in hand.
Irresolution, though, perhaps
The consequence of tributes
Various virtues pay to vice,
The mother of all hypocrisy
Seems cheaper than deaths

Relentless frame
Up of solitude; so
Much ground to cover,
A moment of clarity
Worth lifetimes of sanity,
But brews the rage,
Even precludes the cut,
Through crowded conscience,
To invalidate the sentence,
And keep free the innocent
With pen in hand.

~Victor Imari, 2001

Jabbering

A blank slate is
Life indeed; thank
God for whispers.

 

     ~ The Shah of Athabasca

 

In so many ways,
You may or may
Indeed not know;
You know enough.

 

Take names, for
Example: I have
Many, it seems.
Some not bad.

 

You see, there
Is my aim,
I am Egotistical, not;
An easy sailor.

 

Just whisper truth,
And I am all ears.
As for price, well,
Truth is priceless.

 

~Victor Imari (March 11/2005)

Huh

In the dark,
All you feel
Is your face.

~The Shah of Athabasca

The difference between
Opposition and competition
Is co-operation.

The difference between
Competition and co-operation
Is opposition.

The difference between
Co-operation and opposition
Is...peace? Wait and see...

~Victor Imari (02.1.04)

Staking Decisions

There was inert malaise
To the whole shituation...

~ The Shah Of Athabasca

Waiting for the tides to turn
Your way just doesn't work

So much energy is wasted,
In making sure otherwise,

Someone should just write
Something, and be done.

~Victor Imari (7/11/05)