Lost is the Farthest Place // Richard Gillman

[iatrogenicmyth.livejournal.com]

Even if they are lucky enough
to make it to a town
where someone else speaks English,
it could be one of those lost towns,
so small and short on pride
it has no written history, one of
those towns with a mountain
that shadows it all day long,
where shops are out of anything
indispensible, maps in English mostly.

Even if the place has a McDonald's,
the help may only work there,
live outside of town,
be so young they don't care about
museums, churches, health-food stores, dances,
or whether the town is on a map or if
the concrete complex
sprawling against the sky
is a university or a
flawed, forgotten nuclear reactor.

And yet if they stay on the roads,
go squealing around the sides of mountains, if
they press on up to sixty, seventy-five,
as if the road is theirs, put there
to try their untried courage and their
undying picture of themselves, if
they give no thought to
which exit is better for their lives, trusting
there will be a way out
when they are ready,
that the sign they will understand
is the one that's meant for them to follow
and will definitely appear - this
is the sense of lordly luck
that being abroad and young can brew,
while all the time in fact
they will simply be getting lost
faster and faster.

If you are chomping at the bit to say lost
is generally in the mind, that I have given it too much,
listen to me: lost is more than losing your glasses
for a few hours, or your last twenty dollars
or your recollection of exactly how a compass
has anything to do with anything.

Lost is no fooling, lost is
the farthest place there is. Lost raises hell
with the mind, becomes a wretched boss.
Lost is where you begin to believe
no one can find you, not even yourself,
because you start to feel not worthy of being found,
given how lost you are guilty of getting.

True lost, I am trying to tell you, means
death, only its loneliness breathing.

Am I the only one who knows this?

(no subject)

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Fergus and the Druid – by W.B. Yeats

 

Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the

        rocks,

     And you have changed and flowed from shape

        to shape.

     First as a raven on whose ancient wings

     Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed

     A weasel moving on from stone to stone,

     And now at last you wear a human shape,

     A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.

 

Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red

         Branch kings?

 

Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living

        souls:

     Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me

     When I gave judgement, and his words were

        wise,

     And what to me was burden without end,

     To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown

     Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.

 

 Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red

         Branch kings?

 

Fergus. A king and proud! and that is my despair.

      ( I feast amid my people on the hill, )

Aubade -- Pit Menousek Pinegar

[aimlesswanderer.livejournal.com]

Aubade
by  Pit Menousek Pinegar

It is a mistake to think, All this
will change, not because it won’t—
not even the cells in our bodies

remain the same; the bulb in the lamp
across the room will burn out,
need to be changed, the switch,

eventually—2000 5000 50,000
flicks later—will need replacing,
but because when you say All this

will change, you must subscribe
to loss more quickly, more completely
than necessary. I will not weep

about your going until you pull out
of the drive. I will not lie at dawn,
arm draped across your chest,

leg flung over yours and grieve
the sun. And later, when you are gone
and I empty of you, I will invite

something into the void: an iris
from the garden, an image, still warm,
the willful insistence of a poem.

(no subject)

[togey.livejournal.com]

The Unimaginable World
by Christopher Kennedy

If I stab you with the crescent moon,
you can’t be mad at me. You can be
surprised, but not angry. No one can
admonish me for using the moon
as a weapon. In the unimaginable
world, a moon stabbing is perfectly
acceptable. I know this type of
romance takes patience. I’m busy
in so many realms, I’m not always
available. I sleep with my eyes open
so I can keep you amused.

If I smother you with a rain cloud,
it’s just another illusion. Don’t hold
it against me. None of it’s real. I’m
throwing stars at you, but you don’t
even feel it. I’ve crushed you three
times today with a mountain, and you
go on as if nothing happened. I rose
from the dead just to see what’s for
dinner. I slipped through the silk
membrane of time so you wouldn’t
have to sleep alone tonight. I’m body
and blood. I’m the good with the
bad. I’m not what you think when
you think you’re thinking about love.