The revenants of things undone
haunt us on the lunch hours
we work straight through,
but we are not busy with anything
we ever aspired to,
Waiting for the parole of our
lesser tasks to come, waiting
for the spiritual burdens of
money, the tendril-hooks of
shirked adulthood to ease
in the tender places, in the
secret flesh of our downtrodden
dreams of more,
And we are again forging
small steps ahead at the
keyboard, and at the water
cooler, and in the meeting
room that echoes after all
others have gone away,
But we know our strength
to be hollow, our outward
momentum an illusion,
only busy making believe
we were capable of becoming
invested in anything as we
did before disconsolate
shadows smothered us and
taught us all the lessons that
innocence would not allow.
8 comments:
Good to see you back, Firehawk. Finding a moment to write must be difficult at times. When I dreamed of becoming a writer, I was always beset by things that had to come first. Obviously, you are better at handling that kind of situation that I ever was. I always enjoy reading your new contributions.
The second verse packs a punch.
Doc,
It isn't easy to get the time or inclination to keep posting some days. This is as long as I've ever let the blog lay fallow. Not on purpose, I assure you.
Jakal,
Back again! I'm honored.
Thanks for your recent visits to read my poems, Firehawk. Your perceptive comments are always appreciated.
This is the stuff of nightmares for me. Interestingly, it seems to lack your usual hint of hope tucked in somewhere as an undercurrent. It's a strong, desolate statement of emptiness that leaves me crying, "No! Wait!"
Oppressive. That's what came to my mind when I read this. Like heavy heat weighing down on my shoulders (just like the weather here at the moment lol), and very 'real-life'.
This one focuses on a compelling subject. Even though I've had the enormous fortune to actually get paid to do what I enjoy, there has been the attached Faustian bargain. There are always meetings that resolve nothing, reports no one reads – but that are required so that management can check off a box – and performance expectations not of your own making. Some claim that shouldering this yoke is a sign of adult maturity and that it's a character building experience. Most I believe give up any thought that a job might be satisfying or enjoyable. The long commute, the meetings, the silly management expectations, these are all just things to be survived. Though's who don't give up their dreams often move from job to job or else try starting their own business; and that's not an easy path.
Life has always been hard and a struggle. But I sometimes wonder if the physical struggle for survival that our forefathers had to fight, as farmers and hunter-gatherers, was not in some ways less soul crushing. By all objective measures we live longer and healthier lives. Even so, it's hard to avoid the feeling that – in the end – our life's don't count for as much. It's a me-too, cookie cutter, been there done that world. The challenge I guess is to find something that's really yours and to hold onto it.
Needless to say, I found this one quite provocative. Thanks.
MB,
No sweat about coming over. I think that you're doing a brave and excellent thing with your site. I think that the only way to push through the boundaries you've set for yourself (writing wise, and maybe in all cases) is to just go for it. No second-guessing, no gazing at your feet. There's nothing like just writing.
In regards to the tone of the poem here, "Outward Momentum", I think that it represents a momentary feeling of completely spinning my wheels. That's what I like about poetry, the ability to take a snapshot of a particular circumstance and emotive response to that circumstance. If not for that, what good is poetry, after all?
Mush,
Sorry to be oppressive. I'll try and cook up something a bit lighter for next time, huh?
Swiftboat,
Wow, I suppose I touched a nerve there with you. Yes, the Dilbert-like world can be stupify a person after a while. Nothing seems to matter, nothing anyone says seems to make any sense. I suppose that, on some level, that idea that there are no "good jobs" can occur to you. At the least, the measure of a good job might become not the satisfaction you can derive from it, but rather how little it stands in your way forward on personal agendas.
Thanks, everyone, for coming by.
No need to be sorry. Light's good but so was this :)
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