SON ETTES
It is the same old story
The fight for spit and glory
Enough rhyme just to get your eye
Then bomb it all to sand spilt raw
Across land derived from cis stained maps
Telling know truth
An be told that nothing
Sacred came from that
Is not only a beginning but
Your leading indicator
Of mashed intent.
Now my intent is bigger than
Your reading and that fails for the last
Time since falling over oneself at years end
Is almost as important as prize money
or printed Editions lined up on
shelves guarded by dusty cats
In a newly gentrified sexually cleansed once
Literary housing project called home to poetics
Well give those that survived two bits and a hug
Kiss them on a lid or lip and flash a sign that once
Meant see ya later.
I really should get re-assigned later and find new
Directions if that is the way made to follow
Just keep doing what others want
And hope no one notices the outcome is
Sometimes less than award
Either shame or fame are gathered and
At times seem to fall into those who pay dearly
Otherwise known as the talented outliers
Driving the ship of fools called professional
Which once boarded and set free on the ocean
Of fortune can be seen sinking slowly off a coast
What some call fortune seems to call
So many more that cannot speak for me
To them then might be forsaken over
Again and again beaned into submission
And rejected by all but a few who cannot resist
My heart indeed belongs to no one but few as well
What goes up soft floats but does not dance
So this becomes another attempt at a failed
Desire to compile some sort of record
Which will sadly lean against a wall down a
Narrow hall of black and white.
Two more in this the narrow beginning are
Like a game went on too long
Just before ending a new start
Once more with less feeling then
The last time which was not the best time
However much overcomes less work more time
Always always searching for the last lost thought
Notice that what is repeated is not the most active
Only one which should be left aside to
Slowly decend below the cold dark ice of past
Attempts to try and find something old to fondle
If ever there was a choice to fondle
As too what becomes the most
Than surely that choice is made
For one and another just before set free
And trying so hard to stay chosen
Does nothing to bring the end in certain stance
Of course nothing done means nothing
You see certain of these words seem offset
And that means perhaps a glimpse at what
Being forgotten in the sunlite rays
Creates shouts and jigs and meanings all tied up
Yet even that glitter covered meaning cannot
Beat down the swelled fame of others
Which really does in its way insist we try
To cover not only ourselves
But who ever might just try to impress
All the buyers lined up to purchase a future
That they are told will last longer than imagined
And if that doesn’t sell the book than
Gut wrenching truth be told over again
And again will eventually land all in some sort
Of award winning shelf life
So now there are how many winning words
Is it one or two or more than even that
Who knows and you think and then it is not that
does it really matter.
Really. Matter.
I don’t like it any more than you do and I
don’t have proof that my opinion is worth
more than yours. If I
wrote about my day it
wouldn’t enter yours
very likely…then or now.
I have no where to go
and go there.
You might think that this is some what empty
and done in way that might reflect the end
Like a lot of people I reflect the stuff I did today
And it is awful kinda
awful. Which pretty
much describe mid-century poetics.
Except there were folks making a different way.
Look just because it is over doesn’t mean
it is different or
ligit or thinking about it is
a message. What’s the
point I can’t catch
up with people no matter how hard I try.
I am not used to this.
Catching up with
what is new and a much better example than
quitting which is not
how to get out of this.
fin
(note…..the classic Cuban dance form called Son is in my
head. Seen in the streets of Villadolid and Puerto Morelos, Mexico on recent visits. Very formal in the movement and sound…almost
classical and unable to turn away when watching the couples in the evening soft
light and beach breeze. There is
nothing, I think, appropriated… just the music that lingers.)
*****
Jim McCrary lives in Lawrence, Ks. His latest publication is A Year Book from Shirt Pocket Press which is a memoir in a series of one line recollections for the 75 years of his life.
