I am a part of this Humanity <br />caught between the angels and the apes. <br />In the grid of my own life <br />all my weaknesses ambush me, <br />and there is nowhere I can go <br />where they will not follow. <br /> <br />I trade blow after blow with my surroundings, <br />like Israeli and Palestinian, <br />who continue to soak <br />the ground with their blood <br />rather than relinquish <br />their litany of claims <br />and trail of grievances. <br /> <br />When will I overthrow my history's shadow <br />and meet the immediate world around me <br />as the theater and battleground <br />of my own transformation? <br /> <br />Blame, you have ridden sentinel, <br />you have had my ear long enough. <br />Self, cutting your confident path, <br />turn around and see its tornado wake! <br /> <br />Outward-fixed blindness that mimics sight, <br />when will you turn and look clearly at yourself? <br />Dark habits, you think you belong <br />simply because you are so entrenched! <br /> <br />How long to go on sowing the seeds of pain <br />in my own environs, and then play victim? <br />How long contribute to the trickster's brew <br />whose spell institutionalizes oblivion? <br /> <br />How long? As many blows as it takes <br />to stop manufacturing new verbal prescriptions <br />too rosy to apply in the stink of living <br />as many as necessary to feel <br />every cell's ultimate weariness <br />and finally cry, 'Enough'!<br /><br />Max Reif<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/manifesto-to-myself/
