POEM - No More Need

Do you need

to hear this,
to follow blithely
its particular poetic trail of crumbs?
does the world really need more intricate phrases
formed around a dysfunctional
shifting
sentence construction?
does it need to hear
any more from me or from you?
hmm, when does it ever!
what utility does this need possess?

could you easily do without it?
what would you cluster around
and be about then?
what is this urge anyway?
where does this need - lead
other then to another need,
a whole wagon train of successive needs
where does all this grasping get you?
whence does it take you?
dragging yourself to some far off hill
where imaginative fulfillment 

owns a big house, no doubt 

when was all that ever realistic?
tangible to your present senses
another fantasy flourish
among many
filling up the vacant spaces in time and life?
quickly buried beneath sorrow
and all sorts of other excremental refuse
that you produced, but discarded
do you recognise that here, 

that this is the nexus of your pain?
concealed inside
this self enveloping pit 

of unrequited desires
that this is where your promiscuous muse 

ends up?

Has there ever been a time, an emotion, one sequence of language
that does not need to be shed of its secretive shell
given an internet airing, a publicity shot face,
shamelessly prostituting its need
to be seen and heard and sold
out on the streets?
will there ever be a time of
no more need?

no more need for lucre?
no more need to find expression?
no more need to buy pleasure?
no more need to buy an indulgence
no more need to buy useless stuff?
no more need to keep being busy?
no more need to please?
no more need to blame others?

no more need to hate - them?
no more need to be productive?
no more need to control the daily agenda?
no more need to worry and fret about your needs?
no more need to feel concerned about your future?

no more need to run scared of not existing?
no more need to demand attention?
no more need to optimise each and every
bloody moment
for maximum enjoyment and fulfillment?
there will always be this momentum
and then that momentum
followed by further momentum
circling out like lonely satellites
multiple hands waving madly at the cosmos
to get their attention
sending your message out into the universe
for the approval of another indifferent nebula of stars
when will all this grasping
for those freak moments of attention
exhaust itself of all propulsion?
of all future possibility and direction of travel?
to have no more need  
of all of that? 

only when our need cracks itself apart
might it feel no longer frightening
to fall very quiet, 

to become anonymous
to be intellectually still

to inhabit the silence of a new born day
and those needs calmly will vanish 

slink off into the aura of what is past
then no more need
can give birth
to peace of mind.

Written by Stephen Lumb July 2025