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If You Think



Everyone seems so strange, but you don’t know them

as anything but faces remembered from other days.

Things are changed forever, you’ve forgotten the hymns

you sang with them in every possible place and way.

Filled with visions unexplained, dreams you couldn’t share

of a world so close, you thought you could own it

by nothing more than insincere words, and a dare.

Poet, if you think this is hell, then you’ve yet to know it.



You had no passages to offer others had not read,

but hoped to explain things not mentioned before.

Misusing lines of communication, taking back what you said

only served to isolate and bring you down more.

You’d see people as you traveled, they’d share their heart,

others left you to chaos and failure believing you’d blown it

between where the child is buried and the adult starts.

Poet, if you think this is hell, then you’ve never known it.



Some so and so left you, and the other one lied

becoming one more blemish you couldn’t erase.

Showing no loyalty to either your nature or mind,

you smile and take everything even if you lose face.

Some beds are never made, some lovers never return,

so whatever talent you have, you better hone it

into something that either comforts, or burns.

Poet, if you think this is hell, then you’ve yet to know it.

Hi J ~

Parts of this remind me of the "surreal" isn't the right word, but the best I can do for now, schism between how real , times with people, and times in particular places, feel ~ as though the moment is imbedded indelibly in every detail, and as though that moment somehow is your life [as, indeed, it is!] ~ yet, soon, that indelibility is, at best, a vivid memory, with some details slipping away. It's difficult to explain what I mean, but I get a sense of it [intended or not] from your poem.

My awareness of the phenomena I'm speaking of has become such that, during certain times and experiences, I'll pause to look around, take it all in, look at people's faces, and listen to their voices, with the conscious thought that, "tomorrow this will be a memory; next year, it may even be a faded memory, yet look how vibrant and real it is right now. How could it ever be ~ or become ~ anything else? It's so real, it's hard to believe it could ever be just a passing moment in a memory." It's an odd feeling, and I think my awareness of that kind of thing has increased with [as a result of] my growing older.

I don't understand other parts of your poem, but I got a sense of this from some parts of it.

~ Elizabeth