How Do I? by Chad Lahr (Imitation #2)

How do I? I ask myself this often

Get out of bed each day and face the world

The jokers and gossip queens reign supreme

Second chances are all but lost these days

How does one endure? Selfishness lives on

Friends are no longer bonding together

With every thunder of the second hand

A brother turns into an acquaintance

How long can we swim while the floods still rise?

Not all my sandbags keep the waters out

Or maybe my mouth can’t keep the words in

Nonetheless this is who I am right now

How can you find what you need every day?

Searching through the rubble that you are now

Reach for a hand, but build another brick

Learn to let go, then you will find yourself

How many times can you find your own way?

When the trail before you is crawling snakes

It rolls and writhes; an untraceable path

So no one could return to where they came

How do we go backwards, where we came from?

If our past matters, why do we rush so?

Winding the clock is quite an illusion

If the pendulum stops, we will tick on

HOW DO YOU control your own destiny

When everything is upside down and wrong?

Backwards is normal and no one knows it

You push on against the grain eating wood

“Does anyone know what I am saying?”

Someone asks as their voice fades out of range.

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How do you BY KABIR

How do you,

Asks the chief of police,

Patrol a city

Where the butcher shops

Are guarded by vultures;

Where bulls get pregnant,

Cows are barren,

And calves give milk

Three times a day;

Where mice are boatmen

And tomcats the boats

They row;

Where frogs keep snakes

As watchdogs,

And jackals

Go after lions?

Does anyone know

What I’m talking about?

Says Kabir.