BITTERSWEET

BITTERSWEET

This world can be bitter,
The low achieving runt of the litter,
Screaming to be seen and heard.

This world can be sweet,
Parade of roses in your street,
A kind gesture and a loving word.

The world can be pernicious or the world can be quite grand,
The world can deal a full house, or sometimes a bad hand.
But most times it is in between, a most amazing feat,
Most times the world's a combination, we call it bittersweet.

Into the clouds we sail like a dream, with our paltry lives and ransomed souls,
Into the ocean we flounder helplessly, treading water in the foam and the shoals.
The world is a danger, the world is a harbor,
The world is a forest of endangered arbor.
The world is a welcome mat unfolding,
A warm benediction, a malevolent scolding.

Sometimes the sun is a glimmering star,
Landing and falling right where we are,
Sometimes the rain it rages, pouring down in sheets,
But still the world it churns around us, ambivalent and bittersweet.

Time it rushes, the waterfall gushes,
Nothing is forever or free.
Time it can buoy or it can destroy,
The best laid plans of you and me.

The world can be a lighted match,
Torching all it touches.
The world can be a kindly artist,
His brilliant palette and his brushes.

The world can be a hard place, no one's getting out alive,
The world can be a carnival, a thrilling roller coaster ride.
The world can be your oyster, the world can be your pearl.
All its guns a'firing and all its flags unfurled.

The world it is a battlefield, sometimes we are forced to yield.
Sometimes the wounds are fatal, sometimes the wounds are healed.
Sometimes the sweet taste of forgiveness lands upon the tongue,
Sometimes the fickle hand of fate strikes you when you're young.
Sometimes time is a faithful friend, other times a ruthless foe,
But time runs amok no matter what, the curtain falls upon the show.

The world can herald victory, the world can spell defeat.
The world might end in fire or ice, fiery flame or drenching sleet.
The world can be bitter,
Low achieving runt of the litter,
And sometimes life is manna landing at your feet.
Still the world it churns around us, ambivalent and bittersweet.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED