Passing in Hallways

Passing in Hallways

I've heard it said, life is
a journey, not a destination.
Then mine must be all about
this passing in hallways:
It is where I find myself,
where I learn so much I need
to know about.

I was not well for a long time.
I felt the pressure.
I felt the world was all too much.
The pressure stopped and suddenly
I was better, but I was not happy.
This seems like it may always be
a problem for me —
Will I find myself always poor,
always lacking if
when the going gets tough
I get stuck?

I'm asked, is this what I have
in mind for my work,
for it all to be about poetry?
I'm asked, what are the
technical themes prominent
in my work? I say,
I tend to borrow a lot
from myself. I'm very much
a self-plagiarist, repeating
themes, regurgitating the same
ideas I had, over and over.
So where are we going with this?
I'm still standing on the
outside of the door, wondering
what's going on without me
on the inside of this place.
I'm still passing in the hallways.

I find some bread and take a bite
while I reflect on what has passed.
I chew the seeds of flowers
that will never bloom.
I feel troubled; I stop dreaming.

I wake to the sense that
I am always passing through places
and never belonging. My life as such
is a process of moving on, but
never arriving. Am I enjoying the
scenery as I move along, always
passing in hallways?


(3/22/2011)

Clocks

Clocks

On a day when all the clocks are wrong

and the soaking rain and rough wind gusts

will not be tamed,

our road is littered with tossed branches,

our travels push into choppy currents,

the roaring wind's music issues changes

as soft as the thunder's crack.

Then, as quickly, change is a bird song.

The trees present their pink hopes,

and sudden memory of love rushes in,

beautiful dreams.

(3/13 & 3/14/2011)

Memory and Forgetting

Memory and Forgetting

Maybe I am forever changed, or
maybe I try too hard
to "let go" and "move on"
when it all comes down to just doing
what I want --

Issa apparently wrote:

Mother, I weep
for you as I watch the sea
each time I watch the sea.

Do we ever forget those who move our lives so?

All the things I did and wrote years ago
don't seem to help me with today's
unwritten lines.
I ask myself why did I do and write those things then, and
how did I get through the terrible feeling
I could die before I finished each one,
or was it even the same feeling?
Each task I set out again to do,
just to write a few pages,
each starting point with an almost-forgetting
my prior death-struggle, all
so dramatic.

Today I told myself,
I give my permission
not to take up this new struggle
if that is what I want. If that is
how it turns out, in the end,
I will let that be OK.
Let me remember myself
and forget the pain.

It concerns me, still.
It is so hard to trust and hope.
But I am calmer when I
remember myself
and forget the pain
for a little while at least.


(2/20/2011)