Continuity

Life: a history of vacillations…
Sharp tang of onions being peeled in the kitchen
Itches my scalp. On the radio
A requiem Mass groans and soars.
I inhabit the margin, undescribed,
As I seek a place among the living,
Searching the situations vacant
In their eyes.
I am never anything other than in between,
With the daily prose, the repetitions,
Exfoliations, memories, uninterpreted dreams.
A curious business, to be sure.
I improvise, become what writes me.
I decide not to pretend any more
Then go on pretending. Pretence, I venture,
Is my vocation. A jobbing actor, then, like all the rest,
Hoping my art will be appreciated,
My toil justified.
Sitting with an empty teacup,
I call for the right to be banal.
Unredeemed, unredeemable even, I languish,
Sometimes seeing beyond the day’s news.
This pleasure in thinking convinces me
That a masochist I am.
The fact is…the fact?- the fact is…
I parody myself in living,
Perfecting imperfection to the end.
Autumn again, and I fill up spaces
With anything to hand. Things happen
And happen, as they will, sufficient
In themselves, forming patterns, maybe even fates,
Delicate changes rippling on.
I examine the veins in my hands,
Bulging slightly- and a sudden fear
Hits me-what if my heart is already doomed,
Choked by cholesterol and stress?
I am forever treading on memory’s landmines,
Blowing myself to pieces, then reincarnating,
Slightly modified, and not certain of anything
Before or after, anyway.
Hats off to the solipsist,
Fingering worry-beads;
His quarrel is our own.
History stops here, in this domestic destiny,
Played out against headlines and “rhubarb, rhubarb…”.
What now? Ah yes, time for dinner-
Excuse this borborygmus…I get it all the time…