Philosophical Poetry - Poems on Life, Love & Truth

Poems on Life, Love, and Truth

Ziya Through the Fire

The smell of death lingers,
a memory that refuses to fade,
a guest that never leaves,
sorrow draped over the soul’s threshold
like a tattered shroud.

Ziya grows up with war as his cradle—
watches coffins, small as his own shadow,
lowered into the earth.
Three paths stretch before him,
each a different kind of hunger.

A ghost chained to old screams,
gnawing on the bones of the past.
A grayhound sprinting in hell’s loop,
Every night, the same bombs fall.
Every morning, the same blood stains his hands.
Same hands clutching at shadows.

Eyes fixed on a horizon
that retreats with every step.
He runs toward tomorrow,
but tomorrow is a feast never served.
He builds castles in the air,
stacks dreams like stones,
but the horizon always steps back.
One day, he will turn,
and find his pockets full of dust.

He learns to live in the crackle of now,
to survive today,
not in sunlight, but in ember-glow,
digging for joy like a miracle in the ashes,
buried just beneath the skin.
It is not happiness,
it is the quiet before the siren,
the breath between gunshots.
A hard choice.
A different kind of burning.

Ziya is made of war.
An accent, an immigrant,
a muted tongue,
a face that forgot how to smile.
Grew up poor,
a body bruised by hands and words,
an undiagnosed mind
wired for a world that did not speak his language.
This infinite fire is not his doing,
but it is his to carry.

Still,
his mind runs wild,
a stallion kicking free of fences,
galloping through fields
of boundless imagination.
Reality sits in the audience,
watching the theater of his thoughts, untamed.

Free will? Yes,
but every road is lined with walls.
His certainty is destined to become
food for the flames.
What the fire burns,
that, at least, is his.
He alone decides:
light or ruin.

Stars burn.
Their fire is light.
Some shine.
Some swallow whole.
Destruction is a recognized familiar face,
trusted by the world.
Light is always questioned and must always prove itself.

How does the beauty inside
ever bloom outward
when even his own breath
feels like a risk?
when the fear of being seen
echoes,
in solitude,
in crowds,
like a whisper no one claims?

Where is the host?
Who stood at the door
and said, Welcome?
Who opened their arms
and did not flinch
at the scent of smoke?
Who let him in
without counting the burns?
Of Mirrors and Embers

Vanity is a gilded cage,
each bar polished to a blinding sheen,
your reflection distorted in its golden grasp,
a prisoner of your own making.

It tells you, You are more,
while the world shrinks into a mirror,
and every face becomes an adversary,
every word a threat or flattery.

You preen, you pose, you hunger,
until the hunger gnaws you hollow,
for what is vanity but a feast of air,
a banquet where you starve alone?

And anger-oh, anger is the fire
that licks your bones clean of reason,
that turns your hands into fists,
your tongue into a blade.

It does not burn away the wrong;
it burns you, leaves you charred
and trembling in the aftermath,
ash in your mouth, regret in your chest.

Shatter the mirror.
Let the cracks show you
how light passes through
even the broken things.

Kneel by the river,
wash your face in its cold truth,
see yourself as water does,
without flattery, without fury.

When anger comes,
do not feed it your breath.
Hold it like a live coal
until it cools in your palm.

Breathe.
The world is wider
than your reflection,
deeper than your rage.

Step into the current.
Let go.
Be lighter.
Fool’s Errand

Only a fool, they say,
pries frozen earth for figs in winter,
expecting summer’s gold-green sweetness
from a skeleton of branches.

Just as foolish, then,
to dream the wicked
will shed their wickedness
like a worn coat,
to wait for the cruel to soften,
for the wolf to shed its teeth,
for the storm to apologize
for its rough hands.

Do we stand in the downpour,
arms wide, begging the sky
to unlearn its nature?
Do we plant seeds in stone
and whisper grow?

No, wisdom is not bitterness,
but clear-eyed seeing:
the thorn guards its vine,
the river follows its old grooves,
and fire never bows
to the moth’s pleading wings.

Stand, then, with eyes wide open,
not shut in some wishful haze.
Walk without illusion,
meet the world as it is,
ready for the day’s true colors,
prepared for the ways of people.
Keep your hands open, yes,
but your footsteps steady,
your gaze unclouded.

People are what they are.
To ask otherwise
is to hunt figs in snow,
to wait for winter
to kneel and repent.
Wings and Currents

A sudden urge,
a whisper in the mind’s ear,
to seize it at once.
Flourishing freely,
without effort.
No thought,
no foolish preparation.

A breath of fresh air,
a burst of sun,
a leap without looking
but feeling the wind carry you.

Open wings.

A flash of lightning,
a sky exploding with color.
Must have. Must do.
To fill a void.

Drawn by an illusion, bright desire,
and the fleeting shadow
if you don’t.

A sudden excitement,
a habitual order
that rises within.
A sense of something missed
if the moment fades.

A slavery pull.

The tightening in the chest,
the thought that drills and drills.
A denial of what is,
possessed by what is not.

A deceiving command
that isn’t your own,
a fear of what might happen
if the ritual breaks.

A tightening chain.

One frees.
One erupts.
One traps.
But what of the space between?
Whose Steps Trail Yours?

Sifting through shadows,
the phantom touch
of what could be,
you yearn for the intertwined fingers,
the rhythm of two souls,
marching in tandem.

But there is this dance,
that is an ancient truth,
if it starts within.
Are you joined in warmth,
or just chasing illusions?
Tethered to presence,
or drifting in dreams?
Can’t walk hand in hand,
if you aren’t walking hand in hand.

Thirty thousand sunrises,
give or take a few thousand sunsets,
the average span
of a human dream,
each with its own ache,
its own wonder.
Whose steps trail yours?
Whose whispers do you hear?
Chosen partner,
or the shadow you cast alone?

This trip,
this never-ending scroll
of awe and unknown,
we name it life.
And you,
at the helm or riding shotgun,
have your compass
in the palm of your hand.

How do you reach out?
On what wavelength
does your heart send?
The Unearthing

The tendril,
deep and dark;
a secret thing,
twisting in the earth.

It feeds, silent,
draws its strength
from the unlit places
of the heart, the mind.

Wickedness,
a hidden root,
strong in its unseen grip.
It binds, it strangles.

But then,
a flicker,
a dawn.
A light slips in
through the earth.

A recognition,
a whisper,
a name.
The shadow is formed.

And upon the touch of light,
upon speaking of the name,
the root shall quake.
It shall shrink,
it shall loosen.

Dissolved.
No longer a secret,
no longer unseen.
before the crush of its power,
it withers.

Revealed,
it desiccates,
it crumbles into dust.
A memory of darkness,
nothing more.
Masks and Desert Blooms

Cactus flowers unfold
in the stark desert light,
while chandeliers somewhere else
weep crystal tears
onto polished marble.

Look closer,
at those society crowns
with gilded laurels.
Some crave the roar of the crowd,
their lives a parade shimmered
by golden faucets trembling
and manicured lawns,
with every prop gleaming.

Others wrap themselves
in quiet studies,
sipping the dust and dreams
that veils the sun.

They’ll chase the dark spotlight,
where silent scripting exists
beyond the masquerade ball flitting.
Silks and sequins will be
carefully constructed shells,
a smile painted on
to hide hollow ache within,
the cavern echoing
with unseen emptiness.

But the humble ones,
they’re the deep roots,
the quiet breath of winds.
Their truth unfurls
in desert blooms,
unfurling, genuine.

When your spirit grazes
the unworldly silk of the infinite,
when the spark of imagination
ignites like dry kindling,
then you are remade,
a sudden friction
of light and shadow,
a consciousness
dreaming itself awake.

An awe
that expands the chest,
scarier only
if the heart is a closed fist.
An echo of a single,
resonant word
from the canyon walls
of existence.
Ecology of Souls

The air croons
with unspoken things,
a vast, unseen web,
like mycelium beneath the woods,
binding every breath.

The old man,
still sitting on the bench,
his eyes fixed in a cloud
a distance away,
adds to the silence shared,
a root sipping slow knowledge.

The elated dancer
spinning, a blur of motion,
releasing joy,
a spurt of pollen,
seeds carried on the wind,
to fertilize forgotten corners.

A child’s wild laughter,
a sudden burst of light,
shocks the grackles,
and radiates out,
contagiously undeniable.

The mourning widow,
a stone thrown
into a calm lake,
casts concentric circles of sorrow,
that touch distant
unseen shores.

We are not islands,
though we feel solitary,
each thought, each feeling,
a unique creature
in a linked ecosystem,
interdependent.

The sharp word,
a toxic spill,
can taint the nearby stream.
The gentle touch,
a spring rain,
nourishes the thirsty soil.

And when one heart departs,
it’s not an end, but a beginning,
a shift, a transformation,
the essence of existence
returning
to feed the earth
of what remains.

Continuous cycle,
of giving and receiving,
of blooming and fall,
the ecology of souls,
breathing in, breathing out,
now and forever.
The Certain Uncertainty of Becoming

All that is good in life
is not always better
and not everything that is better
is good.
Risks and rewards
are both good and bad
at the same time,
swaying in the equilibrium.

True contentment
is not mere acceptance
but choice-choosing
to step into the unknown.
The true essence
is not necessarily rooted
in the certainty
of what is visible,
as much as it rests
in embracing the uncertainty
within every decision
we dare to take.
This is faith:
a recognition and trust
in the unseen,
and the roles we play
in this universe
and in our existence.

We are like a single cell
in the body of the universe-
an infinitesimal part,
unseen, yet integral.
Although small,
we carry the essence of life,
steering it on this course.
We are participants
and reflection of a universe-
that creates,
writing the story itself.
Our lives are mirrors
showcasing experiences back
to the source or the higher forces,
by which otherwise
they might not sense it.

The higher spirits send out
their frequency signals
to neither interfere
nor react
but rather to harmonize
with the soul of being:
a state untouched and untainted
by the usual chaos of life.
Let those who live
engage with those living,
and let beings connect
with being.
The gods we have created
are ours and only our own;
they are symbols
of truths we seek
and fears we cannot escape.

We set them up ironically
from our eclipse
of inner light.
Equally, every path goes somewhere,
with them all together leading
to an interconnected memory.
Creation and submission
are not opposites
but parts of the same cycle.
And those superior beings
we imagine exist
only because we dared
to romance them into being.
They act as a reminder
of our capacity to co-create
as well as to be co-created
by the vast universe.
The observer observes
the creator
so that the creator
can be.
The universe is
a lucid dream, alive
because we are.

Every step we take,
every decision we make,
tallies on the infinite
weave of life.
There is meaning
in walking a path
only because walking one
reveals more of who
we already are.
We realize the complexity
of living our stains,
in that we live
in our perishableness
and touch upon
growing infinity.
We so casually are named
moments of eternity.
We are, yet we move
across the boundlessness,
our actions spreading
a broad ripple across it.

To truly live is
to accept this paradox
as it unfolds-
a paradox of uncertainty
and the interconnectedness of life.
To find peace
not in certainty
but in the vulnerable mystery
of existence.
This is where authentic contentment
shines; it becomes alive,
dynamic, and anchored
in every breath
and in the awareness
that every moment
holds the potential for
creation and connection.
Contentment fills meaning
into imagination.

We are the creators
of meaning
and the architects
of experiences.
The gods we quest for
are within us,
born of our togetherness, longings,
fears, and aspirations.
We are those making;
for the act of creating,
choosing, we adhere
to the eternal dance of life.

This dance also teaches
that the way is truth.
The beauty of life lies
in the whole journey-
not in the moments
when that journey attains
its end.
In every step, breath,
and moment of faith
that carries us out
of the cave,
there is a hazy beauty
waiting to unfold.
We aren’t entirely there;
we are just cyclists
in a state of infinite becoming.
And in becoming,
we are already whole.