I sat and smiled with the first reading, you can apply this to more than a construction site, and I am very sure my bf that is your intent. *smiling hug* ... Great poetry, and intuitive observation. I love the irony you point out so cleverly.

Amazing. Life seems so simple when you look through these goggles haha. I am proud of 'achievements' that have brought me here, and sad about others I failed to accomplish...to look up at a king and down at a pauper and apply this concept of "circumstantial coincidence" ...well that just makes things so much easier doesn't it? A single event can send a rebel to the gallows while another makes a hero of him. Where in this life is 'control' and 'choice'? Some will say this is bleak, but my friend I love the view from here because now I can grow beyond it. Brilliant.

this piece seemed very tangible to me, perhaps it was all the hard consanant sounds. The cosonant sounds make the images vivid...I have a real life thing for texture, whenever I am intrigued by something my first instinct is to touch it sometimes I think it's almost childlike...this poem is very textured, it makes me want to touch my computer screen. ~grin~ I feel like this comment isn't making very much sense. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's quite sensory, the images, the sound, the texture...and the jumble of all those evoked senses works with the motif of the poem, with the confusion and lack of clear direction, the vulnerbility to circumstance, with the "anything can happen". Quite well done. Thank you for sharing. ~T

Ashok, as always, this is so well said and described. The chaos simply has to be dealt with and through! This made me laugh out loud at the incredible truth in it! We DON'T know how things will turn out. But if we know we don't know, we can take rest in the knowing!

More than a bit scary. Yet, God conquers all when the life is centered in Him. Great use of imagery.

Some would say that life is nothing more than a series of coincidences followed by a set of circumstances determined by chance or fate. I tend to lean toward freedoms chosen along the pathless path and the intricacies of non-duality (oxymoron intended). I do however find your comparisons unique in that they symbolize mechanisms larger than life, and I especially like the egoic ramification of the last three lines. Great stuff, Ashok! Pe4ce..

It is said "You can't stop progress." PROGRESS? Good writing Ashok....Charlie

With the use of road metaphor, this piece deals secinctly (SP?) with the uncertainties of life.

ah, the irony of life, my friend... we do not know which lovely rock we'll lay our heads on at the end of the day... what the bulldozers of Life will pummel us with tomorrow... as in your addicting style, you raise issues that bring true Life to the forefront and force me to think... bravo... job well done... blessings...

life is ours and yet is not, borrowed and yet felt as something owned and life is owing to the winds its course or to ballast, its stays.

Not a lot left to say! But I love the flow from "None of the paths were going anywhere" to "on a platformIn the center of the square", and the construction site metaphore running through the whole.

Quite an interesting way of descibing the often haphazard whim of life's workings... well done!

I had to blink several times before getting through this, I think because all of the bulldozer references reminded me of that activist who was run over some odd months ago. I know it was a tank that went about the business of murdering her, but I always pictured a bulldozer scooping up a little girl with curly hair and dumping her in a pile of rubble. Had I avoided the media, my second inclination would have been my first - second being: wow, this is a total boomerang poem, without the pretention in "profound", and without the longing in money. It just is. I have found it a very difficult thing, to state "truth" and be completely honest. For me, this poem carried that in abundance. (we're hoping that this makes sense.) So, thank you. I also think that I will read your more often, when I am alone.

this is right on...there is nothing more i can say...perfectly said

A very stimualting read. The scene you set in the first stanza is great. As is the uncertainty of the last stanza. Now there are also those of us that don't try to avoid it but try to be Bulldozed or Rolled. But that's a whole different poem, eh? Great write I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Even the once noble may end up not having a path with direction, may end up being dumped in the square, may end up being rolled or bulldozed. We just don't know, do we?

I love to put meaning on anything. Analyze, think and re-think, maybe I should just surrender more often to circumstancial coincidence... Great read...

Oh my, did I ever pick a good one to read. Sounds like my life...but yes, this is the truth. And no matter where you are or what happens, turning fortune is dependent upon attitude. It's an inside job for the most part. Circumstances may or may not change, but learning the difference between acceptance and resignation is the key.
~Chelle~