I’ve become aware I am nobody
If I had any fame, it is lost
If I was milk, I’d be spilt
If I were a rose, I’d be dried.
I am not who I’ve thought I am;
A lone wolf howls in moon’s light,
A whisper shadows unseeing,
A blueprint is missing pages.
I do not walk alone
For I am followed and met by wind,
My heart beats beside me and within,
And my eyes fall on friends I don’t know.
I’ve walked twice through this field
The first time was to clear
What had taken hold of my empty thoughts
The second pass was to remind myself
Of each burden I had come to lift,
Of all obstacles I have seen come and then go,
Of muscles and sinue of my body that has once been broken or sore
And now which holds me strong,
Of grasses and trees I have been graced to come to know,
Of each changing season that has changed my soul
Just as one changes their choice in clothes,
And when I returned to the spot I had started from
For I knew where I had come from
I knew I was once again
A changed man never to return
To the same footsteps I had just walked.
Each word only spoke to who I used to be
Hitting me with sadness I hadn’t felt in so long
Memory, an idle passtime we cannot live without
Like each deep line slowly growing across my body
And each sun setting beyond the upper field
Pink and golden and blue as it be
A feather of mine that once flew me
In wind I now see as ghosts
Of who I used to be.
My hands of sawdust
Leaked thin oil of care
A blade beginning to dull
Against wood lacking edge
Thought I could not hold
Escaped my singing lips
Towards this mother wisdom
Inside my wooden chest.
A locus on my mind;
Two dollars and fifty cents
While driving slowly in the right hand lane
Looking for a parking spot
And Grimes on the radio
Flapping wings of technicolour
Written cleanly upon the sidewalk
I am not walking upon.
Heaven yoked my thoughts;
A golden beam of sunshine
Misdirected through bubbling clouds
That cannot share my thoughts
For they speak only in winds
I cannot hear or see
Only feel upon my frowning brow
Searching for and watching
Fleeting moments of sun.
An opening emerges;
Calling with my well-let whistle
I walk alone through a quiet wooded path
Unsure but hoping
For a path to emerge
Amidst low hanging spruce branches
But weakness in my knees
Tell me that I’ve missed my chance
So I must forget the way home
And keep my eyes open wide.
Surely this is a swolen gland of memory
Cursing through my body
Pinching where I’ve been hurt before.
Should I starve you out?
Let you waste away like autumn flowers
Suffocating upon the bed you’ve made?
A cry from depths of my unconscious being
Let out like lightning bolts
Surging through my veins in callous blood clotting.
I hold the reigns, but I do not have this beast tamed,
Wild and friggart he still is
An uncouth I have yet to name.
I shall sweat you out
Heat driving mad, boiling away impurities
With a flame I have stoked ever higher
Designed to inhibit boulders
That this dungeon was built upon.
My vision has been blotched,
My insides have been influenced
By an algorythm I didn’t want..
But accepted,
Like inflating gas prices
At the pump,
Along a journey
I didn’t plan.
The algorythm told me
What I should have known
I had to do,
It showed me beautiful photos
That directly appealed to my soul
Because I had trained it to know
What my soul was drawn to
In such a sly way
That my soul is starting to think
It has been tricked into being this way.
How do you step away?
Physically, mentally,
Spiritually.
Healthily.
How does one begin to see dots
So that a woven thread
Can be drawn between them
A threaded vine, hops,
Nestled between two calm growth lines
Of muscle and soul,
Callus and depth.
It feels like turning off the light
Walking alone in darkness
Reminding myself I live here
And can visualize the corners
To avoid bumping into.
It feels like losing a friend
Not the excitement of starting a journey
But the reverse
No more serendipitous friends
Going out for coffee at the coolest spot in town
No more hitting the peak at sunrise
No more rich street foods from India
Or Wat visits in Thailand.
It feels like a Doctors visit
Where reality cannot be escaped
Truth must be told to those who seek to help
And I must admit to myself the most
Where I wake up each morning
And what I have ahead of me to do.
I’m not a movie
No Hollywood plot,
I’ve got cuts on my hands
That didn’t get publicized
My boots didn’t get worn so
By a team of set designers
I didn’t seek funding
I am funding, myself.
So, perhaps this is my starting,
My turning away slowly at the inside
Where I re-write my reasons
And my daily check-ins
Come with meaning and fortitude.
What meaning I do give
Needs to come with a warning
That these messages of life
Are forever important.
This sitting still is painful
I’ve lost the nerves and feeling
To do so anymore.
My urgency and anxiety
Makes an awful racket
At my closed bedroom door.
“Please wait.” I respond softly.
My body ever sore
And lacking desire to remain
Amidst stacks of laundry
And hairy dust balls.
Two fans blow at each other;
Is this a lazy wind?
Coffee cups with
Level lines equispaced
Down their insides
Invite me for another taste,
Which could be the cause
Of this shooting pain
Down my left side.
Or maybe the pain
Just comes from sitting here
Against my will
Struggling to sit
Struggling to lay
Struggling to get movement
My body so much enjoys.
As I move
Each itch of stiffness
Cries at me
Asks me if it’s ok
To be moving so.
I respond in silence,
How am I to know?
The Doctor hasn’t looked at me
Only repeats the same question.
The confusion on my face
Would tell him everything,
But a blindness from this summer sun
Must be my fever’s killer.
I thought I remembered you yesterday
Then I woke and you weren’t on my mind
In my fury I swallowed hard
Thinking of all the time I spent
Without your sweet smell beside myself
I wasn’t hungry like I told you so
But my trigger was a lofty chance
So I left you and your sideways glance
To find peace amongst the trees.
So and so it was again
So it came and so it went
So I heard your voice nevermore
So cold winter sprung away
So a warm wind blew my way
So I loved the place I stay
So I left you yesterday.
Biting wind
Numbing feet
Hands slowing down