Anxious and scattered; words keep running away from me.
I need to write—and yes, need is the correct word.
A physical need, like that for air or water? No. But I feel it, physically, if I’m not doing the one thing I know I can do.
And then it builds, of course: I can’t pull my mind together, which means I can’t string words together, which exacerbates the entropy.
Chicken-egg-chicken—doesn’t matter which came first; my sternum contracts, regardless.
I wasn’t sure what to pick: a poem which reflects my skittering, or something to distract me from it. Picked up this one, then that, then came across this poem by Frank Bidart.
Not quite sure why I set this one aside; the poem itself seems incomplete to me, in need of one or two more goings-over to get it right.
And yet I set is aside, and yet I’m using it this week. Something is right about this.
Little Fugue
at birth you were handed a ticket
beneath every journey the ticket to this
journey in one direction
or say the body
is a conveyor belt, moving in one direction
slower or swifter than sight
at birth
you were handed a ticket, indecipherable
rectangle forgotten in your pocket
or say you stand upon a moving walkway
as if all you fear
is losing your
balance moving in one direction
beneath every journey the ticket to this
journey in one direction
Maybe that incompleteness is part of the point.
I love these lines, these will stay with me:
at birth
you were handed a ticket, indecipherable
rectangle forgotten in your pocket
Yes, it’s all given, so try to remember you are here, now.