It's a Dog's Life

by faith goble



To My (Upside Down) Human Who Is Now Taking My Picture

What are you doing just hanging there,
With your feet on the ceiling
And your head in the air?
You look pretty strange from my point of view,
But humans are funny,
Especially you!

The Mask I Wear

I read as the letters danced
Through teary eyes I glanced
My heart felt as if it wanted to fray
At the very words I couldn't say

The Mask I Wear

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I'm afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me
but don't be fooled, for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water's calm
and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!



My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That's why I frantically create my masks
to hide behind.

They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades
to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation, and I know it.



That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
and if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls



I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
the superficial phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.



But I don't tell you this.
I don't dare.
I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing,
that I'm just no good
and you will see this and reject me.



So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without,
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,



The glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's nothing
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I'm not saying
Hear what I'd like to say
but what I can not say.



It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn't
for I am everyman
and every woman
who wears a mask.
Don't be fooled by me.
At least not by the mask I wear.

My words

There's something I've found in you
that is most precious and so true
a treasure that I cannot buy
or see with the naked eye

and for a way I constantly do seek
when often my heart wish to speak
of thoughts lying down so deep
buried, locked up they do sleep

of pain joy or distress
my heart desire to express
like a language I understand not
my ideas seem tied up to rot

a lifetime may have passed
before discovering at the very last
a friendship that's open and free
yet it also is the key

that free my thoughts from their jail
my heart no longer feels so frail
suddenly it flows to my lips
emancipating my deepest wits

in black and white the letters spill
the secret words in my heart that fill
cohesive concepts the sentences form
from the depths of my spirit they were born

a gift most precious it remains sought
which unties the plainest expression of my thought
conceived out of necessity
and often with lack of brevity

they are born for but a single purpose
to bring these disquieting thoughts to the surface
and to give a loud clear voice to the silence
liberating my soul from the depths of violence

no claim shall I have remain
by speaking without refrain
my words are my gift to you
yes you can believe it's true
for you are the key
that set them free

Copyright 2010
Johannes Cloete
All Rights Reserved

Reaching Out

I wake as if from a slumber to suddenly find myself confronted with a sense of sadness. I stare out my window as a forlorn shadow is cast on my once cheerful nature. Its a strange misery that appears to have raised its head out of nowhere. Perhaps its been there all along. This time I have failed to evade the despair ... Having lost the ability to wrap myself up in the bliss of ignorance, I seem to have equally lost the warmth of my once sunny disposition. As my fears grow shapes and come charging, I offer bitter hospitality to the coldness of the shadows that envelope me now and await the inevitable.

The intensity of my anxiety have become my closest companion and a prison warden to my exiled dreams. Having become alienated from those I hold dear I walk in the midst of the ruins of my existence. All that remains is self loathing which has insidiously arranged the rebuilding of these prison walls which incarcerates my hopes.

Like weeds growing in the night I find my garden of serenity overtaken by this unfathomable depth of sorrow. Blinded by ever multiplying obstacles I grope through fields of sadness ... hoping ... Yet still hoping ... as dim as the flicker of a candle in the dead of night ... Flickering on its last morsels of wax ... Hoping to feel the warmth of the rays of rekindled joy within this weathered soul.


Copyright 2010
Johannes Cloete
All Rights Reserved