Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
A fortune cookie isn’t going to determine your fate. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And being “self-made” is a fiction. No one makes it on their own. There is always someone along the way who gives them a helping hand, a leg up, a push in the right direction. Maybe even an enemy.
Fortune doesn’t necessarily favour the bold either. The shy, meek, introverted and afflicted have made it. If by “made it” you mean arrive at a point where you didn’t think it was possible – any progress deserving credit – and if by “fortune” you mean not rich financially, but rich in values, generosity, kindness, capacity for compassion, then you’re right on the money.
Your face is your fortune? Nah. Your mug was, is and never will be the determination of your fortune. There is beauty in everything you see as ugly. Even in this phone you use as a mirror. Every face has value, even those disgraced. If the countenance of an old book had eyes, nose and mouth, you wouldn’t discount it, would you? The best books are still those you discover at the bottom of the pre-loved pile, maybe even coverless.
No fortune-teller can predict your success either. It’s never written in the stars because most of the stars you see in the night sky are already long gone, for millennia, even as you observe them. The only stars that matter are the stardust that make up your own bones. Inside. Not the ones you bask in the glow of, awaiting drops of Jupiter, on the outside.
Why be a fortune-hunter? Why feed the green-eyed coveter, the luster of the lustrous, the hedonistic hoarder? Instead give it all away with abandon. Yes! For what use is accruing all this abundance if only to be a pauper at heart, not recognising the poverty of your own poor soul? Be not the axe that grinds, swings and cuts others down, but the seed-planter, the hope-spreader, the generational shade-maker.
Be not the big wheeler-dealer, the grand fantasy-schemer, but a humble dream-fulfiller, a smaller emptiness-filler, the tiniest uplifter for the weaker. For when the wheel of fortune spins, it clicks and clacks louder only for those who want to pre-determine their chosen spots, and pat themselves on their backs. But you don’t vanna play this game nor buy a vowel. Your life is already resonant with consonants. Let the a, e, i, o, u’s you miss fall where they may. The words are inside you, anyway. You are already fortunate to have them. No spin required.
Be a channel for their existence in other people’s lives. Re-make them in the order they choose to appear before you. On the page. On this screen. In your mouth. In the ears of others. Let their richness seep into thoughts, grow and magnify. Life is too wee, fragmentary, elusive. But words matter. Your words matter. Feed hungry minds. “Don’t let fortune fool you.” I got that from a cookie. Then I ate it. You can too.
First published in Mayari Literature Journal, San Francisco, USA.
