sw00788v-36.poem34

Venturings
                    [ The following may be a poem prose piece. ]


 Dead in Time


Emptiness surrounds my heart.
Emptiness pervades my mind.
It's as if/ I've passed beyond.
I feel as though I've ten times said
all I care to say.  Count me out.
For even though I intend to
ramble on, it will be about nothing.

Several mornings ago/ under/ a clear sky
frost clung in the grass, and on the roof
of the building directly north/ sparkled
as if studded with white gems.  A passing
passenger jet/ left only a/ brief trail.
A lone icicle/ from that building's eaves trough stretched.
This morning/ the sturdy bush's cardinal/ twice sang.

Recently I read/ every choice a human makes
is of no consequence because every human life
is of no consequence.  Emptiness, and not 
that kind some proclaim one ought to seek,
haunts and haunts and haunts and haunts;
for even though I cannot prove/ certain choices
I have made/ markedly trashed my life, I feel they did.

Therefore every move I make is just that:
a move I make.  My left thumb fiddling with
the telephone cord.  My right hand/ holding the pen
that scratches upon the legal pad/ these
nothing words.  Follow me?  What for?
Do morbid ghosts intrigue you?  My self-
hatred ought to end me, but it won't.  Change:

Time and circumstances I know not of
are what will end me.  Until then I,
by the force of my desires, will measure on.
No dark night, no vacancy, will sunder me.
Whate'er my errant choices, I/ will press ahead,
adrift in the nothings I have spun.  Accept,
accept, accept, accept, this leftover shall.

Peanut butter, a heaping/ tablespoon of,
I just had/ with a Calcium / K / D pill.
Earlier today, while flossing, part of/ another tooth
may have broken off.  Looking at the two pieces
placed on a section of toilet tissue, I could not tell.
Squeezing them, I could not tell.  Perhaps they were part
of an old filling, or a nut.  The tooth is too far back to inspect.


                                                                                    01-24-2008



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Brian A. J. Salchert