Not Dead Yet!

I realize that my last post could have been dispiriting to readers, so I just wanted to say that this blog ain't dead yet. I will be inspired, I will return.

It's that I don't have the need to blog the way I did when I was depressed. I needed it for survival then; now it's more of an option. Then I needed to give a sense of definition to myself through the construct of words when I was losing all definition.

Funny how when you're healthy you don't need to attempt to assure yourself that you might exist through an engagement of words.

It's the disconnection from everything that makes the depressed writer seek objectification through words, though the hope of feeling myself could never be realized, just a verbal record of the stranger inhabiting it.

I don't know where this blog is going but I haven't abandoned it.

Here's a revision of my poem, "Reflection:"


Reflection

Someday when you were only
meaning to look out the window,
your face will appear suspended in glass.

See mine, beard quilled in white?
Above, a vast forehead like a desert
as if the skull were pushing through?
Right, a scar from cop's batons
extends my eyebrow and my mustache
is split by a brass knuckle's kiss.
The right eye's green, the left is blue
with crow's feet spread out
like shatter-proof glass shattered.
then all the luggage below, harvest
of late nights drinking.

Nose? Flat and aboriginal,
strong even teeth but yellowed
by smoke and coffee,
wide smile, full equal lips
upcurling at the corners.
Laugh lines outnumber other furrows
though puzzlement grooves much
(I don't surprise that easily now).
Not a rich man's face, it lacks
a certain earthly satisfaction
though I pray it's free of envy.


II

The poor you have with you always,
the rich man can't help but rub it in,
his mere existence fathers envy
which powers ambition
which feeds achievement
which seeks comparisons
which breed dissatisfaction
giving birth to envy.

It's not the thorn against the rose
but both against the deer;
the deer make them equals
and the sun, confederates.

III

On and on the human engine runs
toward the swimming pool
purchased on credit
from a second mortgage
to the notion
that having all
might cure not having all.
On we fly like wasps
disturbed by a lawnmower,
no furies needed
but our lust.

The ouroboros of desire
is sadly predictable.

How much is that
Buddha in the window?


2 Kilobunnies,

CE