A poet's Self-Analysis... - From Section I (Timing Is Everything) of the Book "Diabolical Seas", a Poetic Communique from New Orleans, La. 2004-2013

There is no quiet time
Within this busy brain,
No sea of tranquility,
No calmness born of summer rain.
No slowing down
On a road that never ends.
It never ends.

There is no putting out the fire.
Raging blazes
Move unchecked,
Consuming every hour.
Each day,
Rising with the alarm clock’s
Prickly tone,
Then falling into a restless slumber
Exhausted and alone.
Exhausted
And alone.

Coffee and cigarettes
Religiously consumed.
The ritual is repeated
Repetition rules the day,
The day,
The day,
The day,
The day.

Waves slap the sand,
Minutes slip away.
Unsteady heart and hand,
Twisted thoughts,
Stained-glass memories,
One more chorus penned,
Then another refrain.

With i’s to dot and t’s to cross
I work in haste.
While the ink that was
My lot in life
Unsympathetically
Turns a paler shade of grey,
Then fades.

Yes, as I stand and stare
In abject disbelief
It fades
It fades away!
The shadows cast,
Collecting dust
In some darkened corner
Of my rotting brain;
Everything that is, that was
Becomes the smoke that rises
From my cigarette.
I hold no hope for my escape.

And these,
These
Dancing bones
Now jittery but stilled
Hang
Like a marionette
Commissioned for a play
The plot too thick to understand,
Sticking tongue too swollen.
I pause to interject a phrase
Regurgitating
Chewed on bits
Of liquefied confusion,
As chaos
Grips the script
And takes the center stage.

And I,
I continue,
Coughing up phonetic fur balls,
Stringing them together like telepathic beads,
Scatter thoughts across a universal
Playing field.
Struggling to protest
This pain,
This uneasy imagery,
The stormy seas
Of righteous indignation
That course unchecked throughout
My fevered veins.

And falling to my knees
I pray,
I pray
The next cards that I’m dealt
In this unfamiliar game
Will bear a clue.
Give me a decent play,
The chance
To stand pat against this
Un-fortuitous fate!

Oh, I, the captain
Of this ship of foolish ideation
Have lost my lucky star.
Currents turn full circle now,
Bear me like flotsam
Back,
Back
To where my worldly woes
First endeavored to embark.

Some would say
That I’m insane.

I say,

There is no quiet time
Within this busy brain.



Michael True
7-9-06 last edit 1-29-11