Long Handholds Poems
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All night he climbs his spinal cord,
up and down he goes
a worker ant
gathering globules of memory.
The bony spine itself
offers handholds for his ghosts.
At each spinal notch
he enters the swim
of sub-osseous neural bundles.
Images are scooped up,
mixed into an alphabet soup
of alternative realities.
He climbs upward only to pause stymied
at the brains tightly packed folds
listens as an outsider
to the down-time humming
of a million closed circuitry heartbeats.
There is too much convoluted counting there,
too much to harvest in one night,
and so he travels back down the cord
to a low-clouded complexity
where shrouded stems burst open
their dark flowers
to engulf the embryonic mythologies
of sleeping giants.
In the morning
he hears himself thinking:
the thoughts are loud
they beat upon the top of his skull
like starving children
trying to escape.
Pulling at the knots, the noose became ever tighter,
each strand of string looping,
clinging tightly to one another.
Hands trembling, I sought to unravel its might
yet the harder I tugged, the deeper the night.
It resisted me at every motion,
binding me to the shame I thought
I could disown.
Each twist, and knot within a knot
were where my skills had amounted to nought; null; worthless.
Despite the frenzied desperation, the knot held.
Why
another failure?
Yet as I came to see; maybe knots aren't necessarily a bad thing.
Like the sewing, where without a knot
one could not finish a seam,
or upon a wooden bridge,
where wearied travelers might praise the builder
for leaving knotted handholds in their wake.
Perhaps one day I might even say
"I'm glad I failed on that day".
For though I have indisputably failed,
the knot has shown me my bounds,
not defeat; but rather a testimony.
A map of flaws I would no longer hide,
a vanishing mirror to be glanced back at
only briefly during my strides.
I linger, to pause for a while,
between the ladder rungs of what's been done below,
and what is yet to become above.
Below me stretches a dizzying array of tiers.
Each step is a relic of a decision,
I've made to take the next rung up or down—
Some firm, some sure, some splintered, and weathered.
Each step was risky, presuming the footing was safe
and there were no snakes.
How readily and willingly I gave my trust
to old wooden rungs—
eroded, grooved, and split by time.
How quickly I mistook,
their quiver and shake when stepped upon,
for the uncertain pulse of my own anticipation,
believing it was a promise of firmness yet to come.
Above, clouds veil the climb,
with no shape to follow, no handholds there are certain.
They're shrouded in the thick blur of not knowing.
The next rung may be the last,
and beyond it — where does the path lead?
Behind me, the descent rungs,
are slippery with snaky mist,
hard to make out, when suspended like this.
Still, my hand thrusts upwards through the mist,
fingers closing on whatever hides there—
a beam, a rope, a door, a ledge, a serpent,
or only empty air.
Will it bear me? How can I say?
I push up quivering on the rung beneath,
letting the weight of what has been,
thrust me up to what can become.
Ladders are great for self-reflection.
2. Aria
Twain kindred souls start slow and reunite,
Same as lovers who split and then made up,
Though, twas a mere slow dance, a Pavane,
Taming a dance floor with their passive feet,
As Faure's piece fades, delayed music mix,
Next, a minuet by Beethoven in G Major, No 2,
Couples one hand clasped together both leads,
Men's other handheld scepters extend outward,
While the ladies other handholds to their dresses,
As the tipsy tune plays like a Lawrence Welk Show.
Now a livelier pace quickens hearts and dancers alike,
For it is a waltz by Johann Strauss' Acceleration Waltz,
Stimulates even barstool occupant whose head swoon,
An ever do-nothing lethargic will enable them to move,
One-step two-step then turn and bow to your partners.
Lovers exchange worshipping lips more than small kisses,
As the orchestra prepares for their tune, rather off-tuned,
Nonetheless, a number by Puccini's Nessum Dorma sung,
Magically, breaths held, as his name was just announced,
The virtuoso, Luciano Pavarotti will sing that famous aria.
2020 January 11