Freedom
We are all so lonely,
locked in our cardboard castles,
no view beyond the battlements,
save for the wild lands, the forest,
from which the enemy might come.
Wild beasts, we cage ourselves
in our isolation and bang our heads
on the bars we built to protect us.
Sometimes, at night, we ascend
to the topmost turret to observe
the stars that dance above us,
tracing our lives in their errant ways.
And is this freedom, the night sky,
with its wayward planets, trapped
in their overnight dance and weaving
our futures, for ever and ever, amen?
Warning: Raw poem … written last night at 8:0-8:30 pm (according to the notes in my journal) and typed out this morning. “Beware the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch …” And be wary of that which lurks beneath the forest’s dark and is never seen in the light of the sun.
rogermoorepoet 
Terrific idea – one universal emotion many of us relate to, myself included. You nailed it with this lovely poem.
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Thank you so much and I am happy that you liked the poem. Some of my recent ‘raw’ poems have been very emotional.
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Rawness doesn’t scare me (‘beware of the jaws that bite’). I find this to be a compelling portrayal of our human predicament. Perhaps I would go even starker with the thought that many people don’t even know the wild lands, the forests..except perhaps metaphorically.
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Great response. I think we often turn our backs on ‘the wild lands’ and refuse to acknowledge them, even when they stare us in the face. Thank you for the comment.
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Jaberwocky is a poem I can recite start to finish. Interested in the idea of cardboard castles. Ephemeral and vulnerable. But they can be recycled!
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They used them in Madrid, the street people. When the shops closed, they built little cardboard castles in the doorways and slept behind them.
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I enjoy reading your “raw” pieces, Roger!
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Thanks, Tanya. I usually like to allow them time to settle. I’ll probably return to this one again later.
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A raw overview of existence. I like it…
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I think of it more as a type of existence. Alas, more people live it than I thought at first. I love the ‘cardboard castles’: I saw them first in Madrid: people living in the street boarding themselves into the doorways of closed shops with castles made of cardboard. Very frightening.
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Hmm yes, that is frightening, just taking time out to enjoy, and marvel at elements of life is so wonderful then it could be sad and then very frightening. There’s so much to explore… Lovely descriptive piece…
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Sometimes raw is best. I like this, Roger.
-j
http://www.thestoneist.com
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Thanks, Jan. I am sitting with your stone carving right beside me. Always an inspiration. We had 8 inches of now last night and c-c-cold this morning. Sunny and bright, though, and the deer ploughed a path through the snow to get at the bird feeders.
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