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