The Flowing Smile

Who Am I?
That is the question
I am forever
In each moment.
And I am the hunted,
For they chase me
With their snares,
And surround me
With their traps.
These strange creatures
Who call themselves people
Forever try to capture me.
They strive to imprison me
With their words.
They throw them at me
Like nets,
Telling me who I am
And what I must think.
They describe me and
Surround me with meanings
Which I twist and turn within
Writhing to escape.
Injecting words like death
With fears and terrors
To entrap me.
They put before me mirrors
Full of images the people
Tell me reflect myself,
Thereby trying to hold
Fragments of my spirit
As if in magic spell.
And if one tiny part of me is
Held they dance away
Singing – Now I have you.
Now I have caught you
And you are mine
To do my will,
To seek what only I
Can give or sell to you.
For you have lost your
Soul to me.
See, here in this bottle
Is your beauty
That you so long for
And must pay me to regain.
Here is your confidence
That I captured in my
Mesh of words
That only I can give you back –
For a price.
Your love is mine,
And only with me
Can you regain it.
And here is the secret of
Your very existence
That I took from you
In the hunt.
And now here I stand
Like a holy light
That you surround
Like flies seeking
The honey of your very life.
And I, looking at the people
Singing their siren’s songs,
Knowing myself beyond their traps
Undress, until, naked, I am free
Of their false images,
Their clever snare of words.
As a living flame
I burn away their trickery
That tries to make of me
A searcher of myself – a seeker
Of my own identity.
And here, formless
Beyond words and images
I exist in the
Immensity of a flowing smile.

Copyright ©2006 Tony Crisp