n.b. simon wrote a comment
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEW 2017 call: The poetic life of everyday things * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEW 2017 call: The poetic life of everyday things * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday 19 January 2016 Simon writes
ReplyDeleteit all began
on a road I know well
a country road
in snow
and it concerns my family
the light is very clear
in beginnings
and the future
is closed into those days
and already time is doing its work
destroying
what went previously
at one stroke
a whole past
ceases to exist
it is the protagonists wish
to start a new life
a child knows this
without needing to be told
the life of the child
is of no consequence
error
is one way of the world
if we fall into error
one error
follows another
we are given the chance
to correct this way of life
which we do
but the current of error
being so strong
pulls us into its tide
I cannot bridge the gap now
well I can
by accepting
some things happen
over which
one has no control
and that I was laying in store
a life to follow
I did not chose
the course of events
everything ill conceived
floods my mind
being a historian
it is a habit with me
to arrange
side by side
snapshots in my mind
which occur at random
and when this happens
all pasts
are as flimsy as cardboard
the pasts speak
as how I lived them
in a sense
of my life being purposeless
that there was around me
a day to day world
which absorbed people's energies
but that had always been the case
beside this life
what?
I should know
but it is hard for me to recount
the images flicker
in and out
I am reminded
of film
in a projector
that slips
blurring the images
it is not a question of remembering
this is of no avail
ones sense tells one
of the other side
of the scheme of things
I know this world
I was born to it
early it was my life
very early
I did not need telling about it
if people had a reason to be doing
others were watching them do it
from the sidelines
if one has no sense
of anything
to begin with
one enters a place
without meaning
lost as one is
one never get oneself
into a place
of understanding
I was very young
during this drift
young as I was
I went far out to sea
this was growing up
it was a hostile environment
I occupied an island
waves broke
on the island
the sea
was an alien population
the sense of being a child
is reactive
adulthood
has the child
in the grip of adulthood
children have instinct
children obey the laws
of the adult world
you are a child
for how long?
the reason for going to school
evaded me
reason of itself
came into question
but the world
which was a new world
fragmented
from the outset
stripping away
what the transition meant
pulling down
the investment
of the innocent
it was not a new beginning
because the same flaws
held
it was a transition
that held the players
in its grasp
it was a short slide
I was fearful
of many things
I was timid
I was brash
I got the better of myself
things of no consequence
occupied my mind
to the exclusion
of what mattered
I was fearful of others
all this got out of hand
stayed out of hand
a part of my lost world
I do not remember
this world changing
what could have changed it?
I was embedded
in what I had created for myself
when I grew up
there was a world
to be taken for granted
ordinary people
thought they were kings
which is how it seemed
these people
had a good run
the trouble was
some of them
lived
to see the end of it
and at the same time
men and women
stood on the rocks
of their isolation
lashed by the sea
which was a way of life
in which they were nothing
what was to come later
destruction for people
existed then
it was implicit
although I was a boy
when I looked at people
I thought
you know
you have had it
the self-assured types
were having the rug
pulled
from under them
I am thinking of a time
when one is still very young
and adults
are telling you
the whys and wherefores
already for me
there was a falling away
no matter one was young
what was taken for granted
was coming apart
people
of my parents' generation
thought they knew
what they were about
alas