Saturday, September 19, 2009

what lives is what we feed


i.
all tucked in, neatly folded
between the cold sheets
of where i was last sunday
and where i am now,
safely home, absent the exiled heart
seeking solace outside somewhere
rafting on the river of this endless night...
it doesn't matter.
you are not here.
you are unable to make this journey.

ii.
eventually i will welcome the solitude
more as a corm for survival
than for relief from keeping up appearances.
and although leaving the conversation
works against me,
i'll journal on, writing exercises on the
flimsiness of hope in the spartan night
and parsing with care the
excellence of my defeat
while words still come
rather than submissively to lie down
on the daybed of despair
making love to the prideful muse of silence

iii.
i wonder what you think this is,
this not-saying-anything time,
this letting-time-pass thing

i wonder if you think i've moved on
and left it all behind.
vacated love.
i haven't.

that stuff lives inside me forever.

2 comments:

Timothy Parker said...

This is really quite beautiful, Terry... lovely and memorable, especially: "this not-saying-anything time, this letting-time-pass thing"

Thank you.

t.l.h.heller said...

tim, it's lovely & memorable that you would find it so!