The path of small steps

Ushered into the darkness of corners,
piled deeply with things forgotten;
gathered for purposes hidden
beneath the obscurity of dust.
Saved for later,
to become a burden of possibility;
a reality parallel to the one lived -
the should have been
of mushy intention.

Yet another year has passed
to lay with all the others;
strewn across the travailed road.
Waiting for the caress of memory
to resurrect the details,
selectively recalling the sweetness
of culpable joys - more likely
ducking when regret flings
its eventual denunciation.

One footfall after the other;
the hand of destiny lightly pressing
into the small of the back -
propelled toward the inevitable.
Without projection,
stripped of illusion -
the desperate hope denuded.
The heart opened and helpless -
branded by time’s relentless prod,
on the way to nowhere special.


© 2002 Melissa Songer

The politics of enlightenment

in the Void one sees nothing
feels nothing - hears nothing
becomes pure consciousness
breath freezes in the eternal
reanimation becomes
an explosion of fire and ice
amoeba shaped by
a golden spiral

the contradiction
of self and other
of beingness and nothingness
all fit within the cosmos
love unabashedly transmutes
the most sordid impulse
into refined inspiration

protocols of illumination
would define what is bleak
and what is radiant
exclude what has not been
exhaustively divined
would hold paradise
for ransom

what is brought
from obscurity becomes light
the kernel will not germinate
without the palliative night
the metamorphosis unseen
the transfixed object
altered by observation
without fingerprint
thought molds the collective

the flux consists of
fleeting opportunities
to mend the course
call upon boundless energy
reach inside and
pluck your dream from
the flotsam of time


© 2002 Melissa Songer