“You Were Meant for Now”

no story more strikingly sad

than beautiful souls who won’t see;

for this do I beg to open eyes,

for this I fall on bended knee

–

you must know you’re here 

because you’re the best;

you are the song of glory

escaping the siren’s breast

–

if only you saw your courage and heart

and wouldn’t ask why or how;

you were meant for then

as you are meant for now

–

think on those vulnerable, 

those for whom you’d fight;

you must deservingly see yourself 

projected in the same worthy light

–

you don’t know how beautiful you are,

how beautiful and free;

you don’t know how capable you are,

how much you could do and be

–

—they sold an angry litany of lies

—a cask of doubt cracked inside,

—scheming venom so stormy-eyed

—rendering you unable to realize

–

that you were meant for then 

as you are meant for always;

you are meant to be right now

as you are meant for all days

–

you were meant for your love and talent,

for your soul and spirit to thrive;

you weren’t meant to simply live,

you were meant to feel alive

–

no greater sin than your anxiety

from doubt and anguish and strained propriety

—that which made you inert and consistent 

and afraid to carve yourself into a society

–

where you are meant to be now

in the same way you’ve always been;

you must care for your inner world

and be brave enough to again begin

–

you feel stuck and can’t make decisions,

like something unknown is missing;

perhaps you feel unworthy of receiving

and have yet done so much giving

–

yet now is the last time for dramatic growth;

you no longer should need those stepping stones;

you paint your world and dictate the hue

—now is the truth, now is the time for you.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 01/17/2023

“The World From Which You Came”

This, such essence of a thousand films,

such substance of millions of songs.

Yet stories told many times already

are somehow fresh to teeming throngs.

–

Where do I go? 

Where does one go from here?

–

People in pain is universal;

the weeping of hearts is oxygen.

People all know such hurt so well

because they too have loved and sinned.

–

All people have been ripped in pieces

and people have all shattered a heart.

All people know how it feels

to feel devalued from the start.

–

I don’t know that I was noticed;

I don’t know that I was cherished;

I don’t know that I was truly seen

at any time before we perished.

–

Where does one go?

Where does one go from here?

What can be left for one to do

when one’s future is bound in fear?

–

You could scarce look me in the eye,

you didn’t care when I would call.

You were lying there right next to me

yet somehow were never there at all.

–

I gave you my love and tenderness;

I wholly poured out my devotion;

I would have torn through the Earth;

I would have swam across an ocean

–

I protect our past like a dying ember,

begging the sensations to stay.

I am nothing without your touch.

I hate you for ever going away.

–

So where do I go?

Where can one go from here?

I know exactly which way I’ll go

now that my vision is finally clear.

–

I believed your life and love to be angelic;

I thought you were special (but you were the same).

Leave me be and abandon torturous purpose

and return to the world from which you came.

–

Return to the world from which you came;

you are better off mining your past.

But I stride strongly into my future

I alone will have the laugh that is last.

–

‘tis in others that we find ourselves

I express gratitude for time spent

Your greatest gift was setting me free

I’ll live the way for which I was meant

–

I do not know the destination

but intuitively find my way.

I gather my strength and my people—

all one needs to live for today.

–

Tony Blau Veldt, 02/21-03/16/2022