Vulnerability of your hollow spaces,

hidden imperfections written on walls.

Slaves bound to your façade in chains,

stripped down to skin and rotten marrow.

I tremble as I surrender to tides of cruelty,

lost in trampled rituals as I paint my dreams

on your unyielding bulwark in denial whispers.

Brainwashed mind dances but doesn’t evolve

dying inside, trapped in tongues of infamies,

inner carcass enslaved in roadblocks.

Flickering shadow of sifting sands envelop

as I face the walls etched with tears and wails.

Maze of dark alleys curl in fetal position,

a marching band of defeat and rupture/rapture.

Hushed words and screams in unending barrage,

dangling wallpaper powers over my thoughts.

In ancient times like when we did not have flush toilets, that’s approx. 5000 B.C. to you, walls were perceived as structures that acted as insulation from the elements very often in circular structures, houses in today’s terms, that also housed their animals. These houses with inner and outer walls protected them from wild animals, the unknown, the outside, the predator, the aggressor, even the boogieman and helped them to feel more secure in an unruly world.

The Great Wall of China originally built in the 7th century B.C., present structure form 13th century was built as a fortification to protect their civilised society from the marauding nomadic invaders.

Hadrian’s Wall built around 140 A.D. was not there to block or close off the northerners from the south of England but to control and tax these enterprising people.

The word wall has many interpretations and is woven into the literature and folklore of many cultures. It’s a strong word, loaded with history, memory, innate knowledge, connotations etc. and has developed into a powerful iconic symbol with a broad clutch of meanings as our politicians are well aware off!

In our present world the word wall has come full circle and now exists also as a divisive political tool to exploit and satiate the masses. We hear threats of walls being proposed on the border of Mexico and around the world. On the edge of townships and even built to divide cities, not forgetting gated communities including their high perimeters. Throughout Europe the wall has popped its ugly head once again as a tool to enhance power, first in Hungry and then beyond.

Walls are perceived as hard solid structures, impenetrable, isolating, dividing, disrupting and dare I say manipulative, particularly the word. The alternative to this solid structure is porous open and opaque structures marking space, as lines, ditches, dykes, fences and openness, which act as pressure control facilities that stimulate and at the same time control movement.

Today the word ‘wall’ has accumulated a multiple diverse cache of meanings. It’s an iconic word as ‘just another brick in the wall’, a divisive tool used for political purpose and still encompasses all the old and used meanings.

In a rapidly expanding world of seven billion people, collaboration, cooperation and participation are a critical component of a dynamic world. But a volatile world prone to disaster and now ‘climate change’ causes increased mass migration as never seen before and needs less ‘wall’ and more openness. Diversity is the essence of a sustainable and vibrant society and can be facilitated by more open structures not closure or isolation. We need to take this word ‘wall’ from our politicians, subvert the guts out of it and reinvent it in other contexts, positive ones, now that could change the world.

I add a brick to every tear I drop

Barbed wire it for every drip of blood

Layer after layer after layer

I stack em

The drippings can't seem to stop

It's the only way I know how

As if it's the only thing I'm programmed to do.

I fear of something

Paranoid to every moving thing that comes to peek what's behind these walls

So I stack em

A wall the Ancient Chinese would look in amazement

Even the moon would trace it around me

Just get lost by the walls I built. Each brick a tribute of those people, now it's built like a maze.

The one thing that stands out though,

Despite the magnitude

Is a door.

The only single door

It's not even locked

It just needed to be found

Once protected by his WALL OF TRUST

Now Shattered by his given CRACKS

The wall has worm holes of MISTRUST now

Questioning bricks fill the GAPS.

My ears listen whispers of the BROKEN bricks

Eyes see the ghostly hollowness of SPACES

Lips could feel the coldness of the separated FRAGMENTS

Ruptured Soul wanting to close the BLACK HOLES.

A  wall so FEEBLE, DISCONNECTED and DISHONORED.

UNSURE AND IMPURE, IS MY SHABBY WALL OF TRUST. 

The Wall now I am holding, with BAFFLED HEART and FINGER LESS hands.

Have you ever seen a WALL BLEEDING AND CRYING?

A VULNERABLE WALL INDEED.

How did you do it?

It was solid, strong

Unbreakable

No one had been able to make it crumble

But somehow you did

How did you do it?

I cherished it, kept it close to me

It was a part of me

I was safe, protected

But somehow you changed me

How did you do it?

Was it your way with words?

Oh, how they flow so gently in the air,

Like the warm wind on a beautiful April day

I never knew it could be done

But somehow you proved me wrong

How did you tear down the wall around my heart?

You were swift, sneaky even

I fell for you, and I fell hard

I didn't even know it at the time

But somehow you did

How did make me love you so easily?

How did it happen so fast?

How will I ever build my wall again?

I bet that, somehow, you know the answers.

You always do.