Emergence

The wind that drove me
from the cavern stopped blowing;
a long intermission poised -
drawing my eyes into regions where
light had been filtered by jigsaw effects
of the surrounding trees.

To see inside myself meant
halting the apparent gaze;
meant arguing with the fractionated aspects -
all gathered in committee
to decide who would deliver
the final product.

As if I cared.
It was all a sham -
illusion and smoke and focus pocus;
a multicolored cape-swirl
beneath the spotlights
as the audience gasped
in pure amazement.

All facets danced with me;
the front men, the showgirls.
Performers all, enacting the sleight of hand,
the high kick - a dazzling/sparkling
disco ball of the self.
O wonderment.

Beyond lay a greener time -
a bucolic freedom to reassemble
the jumble of parts;
discover the integral.
Sunlight awaited -
warmth and silence
atop the mountain.


© 2002 Melissa Songer

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