Society

Chaos put to the test, shown reason
to the point that nothing really even exists.
A perfect barometer 
for some kind of solution
just a mood and approach
an openness to the possibility
that nothing is as it seems
and to keep on going forward
despite the pain.
In a black night, there are lights
even when the sky is overcast
and the stars and moon
don’t show
faces under electric light
however dim
express with the curves of line
and shade and reflective shine
and words formed perfection
as the moment with its deep well of past 
experience
can create 
with its intricacies that cannot be fully understood
until time has molded the words into phrases
until the phrases have become full-formed ideas
till then passed over but remembered
kept safe from the coming storm.
People pass you on, from person to person
they know what’s at stake:
it is what sits in front of them as they speak—
a person, a life, a lesson for the world
to teach
to the next, and the next
who come before them. They pass them on
to the next, with new knowledge gained
to teach, that they might learn
and continue learning.
Faces lit by dim light in a dark place,
strangers-would-be so intimate
some beautiful, some ugly,
the voice within
that comes out
expressing in tones altogether 
tragic and beautiful and comical and strange
and bitter and horrifying
all the same thing:
I am alive, and I know. I have lived
and I have seen and heard.
Listen to me, learn from me,
if you cannot, to Hell with you.
But the voice calls me back always
with love. A tender voice
truer than death
calls me tenderly
and always I return.