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02-05-07

6M

p9

Between Mind and Heart

by

Mathew Ossja

Sample: 1. Christmas in Your Grace

Silent night, a holy night
A night for a tear
A tear to remember
A tear for joy

A sacrifice so dear
Above even sincere
What have you to deserve
That terrible fate

You watched over your children
Some who wished you death
But even with your power for revenge
You withdrew your life to atone their sins and wish them best

I could never do what you did
I could never put myself to die for those against me
You died for the ones who loved and hated you
But your emotion in that time was love entirely

And today is the day from whence you were born
A candle in my heart atop the holiday table standing high
A shining star above the tree to symbolise your heart
For as you left us those many years ago I feel your presence in the sky

I am not perfect
I am a sinner
I am sometimes selfish
I even curse at dinner

But there’s something about you that changed me
From the day I truly accepted you into my heart
My life had more meaning and direction
In turn my life had start

I don’t view your way as work
I instead see it as your personal bless
Your wisdom saved me from doing a terrible thing
And I might not be by my family for Christmas

So before I leave to my family for a celebration in your name
I just want to take time to remember how this came to be
By your good grace everyone shall unite for the day and experience a heavenly bonding of love
You made it all possible for this to happen, Jesus I thank thee

2. Silent Heart

My story is a lost one
It hasn’t need of a name
But if you would require one
Silent heart would fit just plain

My story isn’t a cliché
Not like the Hollywood lies
My story isn’t a play
This is of my life

I started once a proud someone
I was remembered for my smile
But that’s something I haven’t done
For a very long while

Something in my life
Had drawn me out of breath
And left me suffocating in its spite
From then it never left

What was it? You may ask
What was the initial thing?
My answer to you I shall not mask
My heart was suffering

So what, big deal you might add
You’ll get over her eventually
But this feeling is not a fad
Dictated by society

Love is something you cannot define
Until you have felt its presence
Whether it’s gentle and heart-warmingly divine
Or a disease that removes your life from its essence

If you ‘re saying it’s a disease then why do you still care?
It’s the only thing now that my life can survive on
I have never met anyone ever so fair
The phrase there are plenty of women like her is wrong

But how do you know, you don’t know every one?
I can’t look to another she’s the light in my fire
And if the light is ever gone
The blaze would go quieter and quieter
You still didn’t answer my question

 

You must look at it metaphorically
The light is her, the fire is my life governed by my emotion
If the light disappears, the flame cannot be

The light of the blaze
Being its heart
If it ceased to shine its rays
Then the flame would fall apart

A candle flickering in the dark
A light surrounding it leaving its life bound
But once the flame has lost its spark
A light is no where bound

The flame can never be the same
For it was born by its lighting
And lived by its blaze
And from whence it had died came its darkening

And my flame now loses its light
She doesn’t love me and my heart therefore dies
So my story may not be the best of what you could recite
But before you leave back into your life, remember this was no lie

So I bid you farewell as I breathe my last air
Losing my colour as I struggle to keep stable
And as I disappear into smoke as black as my despair
I fade from existence and become your forgotten fable



3. Lift Me From This World Tonight

Lift me from this world tonight
I’m exhausted and frail from this fight
All I wanted was to be alive
But what stopped me was my happiness being deprived

I was robbed and forsaken, by my peers alike
And all I have now is myself this night
Wasting away by the bedside
Curled in a ball, creating a shallow tide

Wishing for someone, to hold in my arms
Wishing for someone, to hold me in their arms
In a short happy state bound by fantasy
Taken away when woken to reality

If I asked you tonight would you cry if I die?
Would you answer me truthfully or would you lie?
Would you tell me your answer to keep me alive?
To fill me with pain that I much despise?

I look at your words, but see only words
No emotions bound by what I have heard
You say what society has deemed right to do
But if I did die, you’d live your life through

Forgetting me the very next day
The mention of my name, you’d not even say
So I ask of you not to cry
That way you’re not bound by a lie

For tonight the Lord will lift me into his arms
And Cradle me to sleep, and my despair will be disarmed
And what of that I leave behind
A scarred body that you will soon find

Scarred by the torment thrown my way
By your silence day after day
But I do not blame you for my fate
Because you shouldn’t be concerned by my state

Because having a role in life is what I longed for
And having none is what I died for
Living a lie, lying while living
There was an ending, but no beginning

To live in such a way drives you insane
But I don’t want you to think that you’re to blame
But sometimes I would be waiting for a call
For my silent cries to you all

But then I would be left alone
Left there motionless like a stone
Drowned in thought in a meditative state
Lost in emotions conspired by fate

If I could be truly alive while asleep if it seemed,
Then I would never want to wake up so long as I dreamed,
But maybe sleeping in a void-less state didn’t seem too bad
At least all the pain in my life I will not have

So now you know why I must leave
Since life has left me so very deceived
And as I take my last step off the beam
The hold on my neck tightens, I ask, will I dream?

Synopsis:

The book is a recording of all my emotions that I wrote down into poetic outline.

 Most of them were circled around love and depression. The book has different sections, War, Religion, Depression, Love, Heartbreak, and Anger. It was a three year project and many of the emotions shifted accordingly over time, such as depression; it shifted from a desire to become happy again to desires of escape. The anger part also contrasts the nature of the poems as it directs and formulates the intensity of emotions built up, even from the depression. The love poems intertwine and connect with the poems of heartbreak, as they create a rapid equilibrium between both of them, the theme of confusion is able to be seen by it; since the poems of heartbreak reflect off the love poems, and a minority of poems build off the heartbreak. The War poems are based on the emotional status of soldiers during wars, and explores reasons why wars are carried out, bringing in a post-modern approach. The religion poems are based off: the joys of Christmas, the sorrow and appreciation of Christ's sacrifice, and spiritual intervention into ones life.