A Poet’s Past Lives
A Poet’s Past Lives
My past lives are very vague and very, very near forgotten,
and I have the feeling of things not very effective.
A long train of mistakes, or a trail of false plunges have gotten me
here, I believe.
(shifting) No heraldic escutcheons for me!
More like a nightmarish moth I’ve been repeatedly swatted.
Or I feel something abdominally driven like a worm,
with never any direction, just a faint urge…
I’ll have a beer.
(pounding the bar) That even now as I’m emerging as a Poet!
Godawful atavistic clingings, is what it is.
I can’t shake this chrysalis. It’s hard enough just to sleep!
And when I close my eyes, I see this glow.
As if all the while I were just trying to get close to the fire
and warm myself, that’s all.
by Carl Nelson
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