Man, Creature of Fear^*

Man, creature of fear, alienated,
Vulnerable to both lion and mite,
Capable of neither fight nor flight,
Till intellect was given as his tiger's tooth
Through Desire and Time, to protect from Truth.
And now with conceptions armed,
His sack of alternatives to protect from harm,
He chooses that which best relieves
The pangs of fear and anxiety, believes
These, which he, great constructor
Of possibilities, ought to be. And
With Will, insists they are, builds
A new truth of his own, Reality, a
Comforter of false knowledge, his
Understanding, on which he is spirited
Straight to hell.

Man, seeker of rigid certainty,
Yearning for guarantees, who,
Each morning his abode leaves
With his shield of contracts and intentions
Tucked beneath his arm, secure
For the false promises they deliver
As salve to his cowardice.
This dynamic universe of shifting
Sands, turbulent seas, howling winds,
Of power manifest, yields no place
Of firmity to his mind of alternatives,
Since, no matter how hard the rock on which he stands,
He can conceive of it differently,
Renting a tear in his own faith, now
Spewing forth terror in its place,
Requiring insurance, more contracts
And documents, even from God.

And when mating, conceived of as it ought to be,
Marriage, beckons him to the alternative to loneliness,
Seeking his guarantee, requires
Love aforehand, passion proven,
Perhaps wealth and beauty as dowry,
Marches secure to his doom, while
Fools look on, coward, without risk,
Whose yield is proportionate:
Realizing not that True Love is a gift
Bestowed upon those who, with
Faith and Humility serve a greater
Power in the form of life begotten;
And one day, in the midst of quiet toil,
Look up to see shining from the other's eye,
This beam of light which
Silently carries the word
That we are no longer alone.




A. Iosue

*Early one morning, even before the sun had risen, perhaps 5 am or so, I awoke from sleep and was experiencing a phrase which kept repeating itself over and over again in my head. The phrase was powerful and reeking with meaning and significance. It was sensibly profound and kept urging me to get it, to grasp it, to expand it. I was still in a state of stupor but was compelled to get out of bed. I groped down the stairs to my library and to my desk. I took out a pad of paper and began to write whatever flowed out of my mind. It was as if another was presenting the words for me to write. And most strangely, the words flowed out in a poetic type prose. It was the closest thing to what has been called 'automatic writing' that I could ever experience.

During this barely conscious experience, I found I had written the three stanzas above which entirely expressed my philosophy in condensed form. I had never written a shred of poetry of any nature prior to this. Nevertheless, there it was, lying on the desk in front of me, as if written by another, although in my hand. I call it "Man, Creature of Fear".

A. Iosue