Although it was my best of intentions I don’t know why it was not obvious to those who claimed they knew me.  But what they saw was some kind of favoritism but never the cost or the contract involved.  That it could not be believed was understandable.  But the next question should have been,  why not them?  But already the comfort of being a child taken care of was too cherished to give up.  And lax in work habits they would appear but bluntly just lazy.  The work involved was too much and the profit of it all, non existent.  Why go there?

Only for punishment to be sure.  That sainthood was  desirable an achievement? Not for them because to be a child and not critiqued but only with a pat on the head and told to go forth and sin no more was what was easy.   And were we not told that heaven was for children?  Childlike?  Maybe a different word but same meaning?    Sweetheart, heavy difference.

This classroom of the universe is vulnerable with high chance to go down the tube again.  Inconsequential behavior leaves no hiding place.  Where can we go and not be found?  The following poem is from a new work called Terminus. 

     Immigrant. . . .

         I watched as you worked
         a mind through endless turmoil,
         sifting and sorting truth and fantasy
         and arriving. . .

        You opened eyes and unblinkingly stated,
        ‘you have always known, haven’t  you?
        How did you do it?                                 

        I knew I could not take even 
        a moment of self revelation away, 
        answered,  ‘in my way.  I loved and
        raised babies  and painted 
        roses on their cheeks and
        planted evergreens in their hearts.’       
        And in a way I had not known,
        closed a part of memory so I could do it
        all for real, so I would use the same rules
       you did and everyone else.

        But you did not play by the rules.
       They were changed so quickly for you
       that you could not switch tracks.

        So now I write why.
        I compose odes and melodies
        and tie my feelings in knots
        and look for entry into a world
        I know by heart.

        It is one I never left, even to come here.
        I carried it around like a money belt
        all the days of my life.
       And I know now that when I go

       it will be to the old country.

July 18,’87   all time is simultaneous

 

photo by john holmes