It's Not So Much
It's not so much the darkness
that bothers me
it's just that at these depths
the sea forgets how to dream.
And being a lamp unto yourself
where the darkness is so naive
it doesn't run from the light
isn't as much fun
as watching stars
try to imitate spiders
in the eleven dimensional corner
of my left eye
like cut-out constellations.
I'm not one of those who go looking for meaning
because they want to mean something themselves.
I listen to the hissing
of olaceously black rain on the asphalt
as the cars go by under my window
and the streetlights run like blood
in the gutters of their hemorrhaging swords.
The physicians must heal themselves
when the shadows of their grails fall ill.
I'm just singing
without seeking anything
like a nightbird in a secret grove
or a busker on a streetcorner
playing for nothing
because I don't know what to ask for anymore
that isn't just another version
of everything I've already had.
I'm just casting my voice like a ventriloquist
to overcome the loneliness
of the return journey home
only to discover
no one lives there anymore.
Illusory cures for illusory diseases.
Struggling not to be void-bound
is like a mastodon
trying to swim in quicksand.
You sink like the cornerstone
of a pyramid with a tilt.
You become the architect of a museum
your skeleton built
bone by bone
out of your minerally preserved
retroactive remains.
And it isn't quite pain.
And it isn't quite despair.
I'm wholly here and awake
but here isn't anywhere
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poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
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