Two Hundred Tea Bowls

Two Hundred Tea Bowls
© Surazeus
2018 05 28

Staring at shelves with two hundred tea bowls,
in every shape and color possible,
the old man hugs cracked guitar to his chest.

"That is how I think of the poems I sing.
Each one is a pot I molded and baked
and then set on a shelf with all the others
to just be, so useless and beautiful,
till time cracks the meaning of all their words
into shards of surreal absurdity."

The old woman with three eyes takes one down,
lumpily oval and black with white skull
that grins with star eyes into secret souls,
then pours hot tea in with honey and milk.

Sipping tea, the old man with cracked guitar
sits on the wood porch of the ancient house
and silently watches people walk by,
studying the shapes and colors of each face
to read the history of all their ancestors
and see the trails they walked around the globe
to become this random person in flesh.

"Each one of us, like a special tea bowl,
was molded by the hopes of our ancestors,
and now we walk around the city streets
and sit around in buildings, doing things,
so useless and beautiful as we are,
we humans who evolved by accident
from sweet eyeless ooze of the shining pond."

The old woman with three eyes holds his hand
and points to the young boy with new guitar
who sings on the street corner to the cars
that whiz past in a blur of flashing sunlight.

"I see face of American Apollo
returned alive in that ambitious boy
who howls the agony of modern life
in beautiful tones and absurdist lyrics
that reveal the mystery of aching hope
to evade the mute destruction of death.
I want to hear you sing again, my friend,
for the poet who cannot sing is dead."

The old man presses fingers on three strings
and strums harmonious vibration of thought
that ripples ratio of melodious love
like wind blowing on surface of the pond
which reflects the face of humanity.

"I will mold in the pot of flesh from clay
the face of every soul who ever lived,
and teach them ancient words so they can say
they knew the truth before they were deceived.
We walk down the road of the world to find
the secret of love hidden in our mind."

"We wear the soul mask that our parents made
and play the role that our ancestors dreamed
till we swerve away and try to evade
horror of death with hope to be redeemed.
We walk down the road of the world to seek
the secret of truth in new words we speak."

"You always touch my face with tender hand
and teach me how to become my real self
so when we move through weird maze of this land
we write books of tales we leave on the shelf.
We walk down the road of the world to touch
the secret of hope we long for too much."

"We wonder why we are born from desire
and must invent the person we will play
so we gather to drink the juice of fire
and discuss the life, the truth, and the way.
We walk down the road of the world to eat
the secret of life in the sun-ripe fruit."

People walking by stop to hear his song
with each new line that spirals from his mouth
till large crowd is standing in reverent awe,
then, when he strums last note of aching hope
and stares down at the center of the world,
they disperse onto a hundred pathways
and disappear into maze of the world.

The old woman with three eyes holds his hand
till the atoms that long pulsed in his brain
spiral down into the tea bowl she molds
from the ashes of his body, then paints
his young face with the red blood from his heart,
and sets tea bowl of his soul on the shelf.