Saturday, March 30, 2013

Searching For Everything Already There





'The Universe is searching for its long lost relative The Other Universe, as Life also searches, with infinite melancholy, for The Other Life.' - Department of Lost and Found Souls. 

(For Charles Simic) 


The World is a search party looking for itself,
looking for that which is absent;
A key, a cherished stone,  a heart shaped locket,
some lasting impression, something in the dark.

By close of day half the planet goes to bed, exhausted,
leaving the other to wake and continue their search.
A millennium – day after day – without object.
Not so much as a wry smile caught in the glint of a star.

Some say it is not the finding
but the search that is the measure. 
I am inclined to agree
as I look out the window at my lover
who shows no sign yet of disappearing.




Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Shadow Boxing




A silhouette less defined stretches 
prowls more panther 
beneath tall grass
primed to pull at all that is wild.

   All you compress 
   to hold together,
the clean surface wiped clear of suspicion
betrays nothing of the conflicts
which lie back there in the shade
as you lift the gun to your smile
to wipe your face off the world.


*

A darker number of a poem. My interest in the human shadow never ends. I'm no Jungian analyst but something in that metaphor of the shadow pulls me in and encourages me to shed light through writing on the darkest of human spaces. 'The furies are at home in the mirror.' R. S. Thomas.  http://www.samh.org.uk Don't be crazy alone forever. ;)  photo byjasonlumsden