Sailing Away

28

Sailing Away
(A Poet’s luck)


A prolific poet, perhaps knows too much
a scholar, philosopher, and perhaps a crook!
As if life and its normal journey are not enough
could never be enough; not even with all its
travels, towers, troubles, and tenderness—
nor with all its adventures, its vast universe, and its ghosts:
nor with all its wars, and higher learning universities,
nor with all its lovers, friends, and so many
of life’s confrontations; used and unused furniture.
He brings to his home, along with: the wives
and children he had, with all their Christmas’
and toys, troubles and pains and insane days—
his country’s songs, but he never sings along.
He reads and writes, from early evening to
the break of dawn, that’s a poet’s life.
He really wants to sail away, merrily, merrily,
far away, because nothing is quite enough!
Thus, in-between, he gets drunk a lot, not enough!
And then, somewhere along the line, he thinks:
when the time comes to stack it all into one big bag
that’s going to be is rough! How precious life was,
and is to a poet, and yet it is never enough,
it is never ever enough, and sometimes
it’s all way too much…way too much:
he wants to sail away!... far away, way far away!
His emotions are like a rollercoaster; his heart
in the hospital, half the time; his soul wondering
from church to mosque to synagogue, then home
again, wherever that may be. He finds God
everywhere, and rest assure, the devil follows him too.
Neither the most restless angles are as busy as he,
but he never protests: in fear the poet may die
suddenly, and alone, where forth, he wants to
to be in the good graces of God, to write his last poem.
Hence, a poet who writes perhaps feels too much
never able to love himself as he loves, and wants
to loved; hushed, he looks on, and on and on,
at simple things, like: hats, rats, cats, and plants,
little birds, and the stars, and marvels—
and souls: eyes, feet and confessions, so many things,
and then his children leave home, gone, complaining,
rearranging, and saying: “We never got enough,”
they got a bone of contention, full of terrible hate,
they live in disgust, way, way, way too much…
they want, and want and there’s never a abundance;
but that’s a Poet’s luck. And somehow, someway,
the Poet just sails away…!


Note: (The word ‘he’ is implied a lot in the poem, but he in this poem means s-he, or me. 6-18-2007.)