the whimper

he looks around
his house was full
of stuff and junk
things he keeps instead of memories
that he rarely revisits
unless he happens to come across the object
which encapsulates it
when he's looking for some other thing

he looks around
and sees the accumulation of years
like a mountain he tries to carry with him
and he wonders
if by entrusting his memory
to dead objects
he relinquishes their vivid life

once his memory
was a time machine
he had but to think of a lovely moment
and he could smell the rooms
of his early manhood
and see the dapple of the sunlight
on the hardwood floors he loved so well
in that house full of people
whose door opened upon the wide world
for each of his wild companions
back in the days before they were tamed
and separated

he looks around
and cries out enraged
by the patina of dust
occluding his trapped memories
now so very heavy
and he stands in the house
surrounded by the possessions
that own him
vibrating with an agitation
he grabs a book
and throws it at the mantle
crushing his keepsakes
with bound words

he steps into the night
and under a sky of silvery dust
he whimpers
as the liberated memories flood
his awareness
and time reveals her illusory nature
he is his memories and dreams
and the misery of the present
passes away
like a terminal patient
who learns the value of minutes
and bursting with the news of life
wants to share its warmth
and to say how the coldness creeping closer
is mimicked in the isolation
of large empty houses
filled with old dusty stuff

Composed Upon Changing My Facebook Profile

have you heard the good news yet?
they've been talking around it for years
you can almost hear it in all great quotes
in those great songs and perfect moments
which you wonder whether have always existed
and then
it is illuminated
and you realize
that the only traditions are oral
and time is a plaything
for smart, patient people
who breathe it
you can almost hear them sighing that it is incommunicable

i was reading what some dancers said
about the difference
between a gesture and a sentence
and of practice as self-generation
i could hear them conversing through time
to each other
and to me too
and to you if you'll have it
i could hear them and i thought to myself
of music and classics
shared moments like a pop star's passing
and how each time you hear a song
it never quite captures the first listen
that aforementioned wonderment
the dumbness struck
by a universal chord
dancers know how to deal with it
but poets only have their words
and the ineffable "it"
is the only word that
describes this thrumming i'm talking about
the one that keeps me meeting dawns