"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Saturday, July 24, 2010

Self-Indulgent Wallow

I run alone at night
For even shadows would be company
Disburdened of the ghosts of friends
Stripped of society, of mankind's crush.

I run alone at night
Sightless footfalls tracing chaos
Time and effort become unknowable
And I blend into my run.

I run alone at night
Shedding inessential me
To where finish line and start are one
And words of thanks are lived unsaid.

I run alone at night
Seeing you have become a part of me.

..................................................

These are the oldest stones on earth
Formed as the world was still cooling
Before there were volcanoes spewing liquid rocks-to-be
Before sands compressed beneath oceanic weight
Before winds scoured surfaces clean
Before ice carved and shattered
Before forges, chisels and picks
Before I placed them here this morning

.............................................

"You do not have to live with such sadness."
And with that I had to agree.
We started the meds and talk therapy,
We tried the experiments, the e.c.t.,
We charted new grounds with some surgery.
The sadness remained, but it was no longer me.

4 comments:

RBR said...

This hurts my heart.

It is, of course, beautifully written and powerful, but...

it hurts my heart.

Please be nice to you.

There needs to be a rule only one of us can wallow at a time. It is pretty fucking boring in blogland when all the crazies are indulging.

Your writing on this topic resonates with me and that makes me sad. I would not wish that on anyone, especially not a friend.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

I agree with RBR: This is worrisome. Sadness is sadness. It's real. It's not self-indulgent. Better to address it in some way than to let it become despair. Better to get it out.

You've managed to make yours the raw material for a powerfully emotional poem. Are you at least getting something positive from that? You ought to. It is an excellent piece of writing. And like RBR, I've know these feeling but could never express them as well as you do.

This place - where we all are - is sad. But, for all we know, it's all we've got. So are you doing something to address your sadness? To come to grips with it?

I sure hope so, my friend. Because the world needs its SteveQs.

SteveQ said...

Guys, by the third poem it's become tongue in cheek doggerel; perhaps my mordant wit is WAY too dark - and really, it was just a combination of remembering someone else's problems (back in the Snake Pit era) and reading some Weldon Kees (an early birthday present to me that's seriously, horribly, viciously dark - and amazingly well-written).

Thanks for the kudos on the quality, though. The first one's not bad for a first draft.

joyRuN said...

I had a comment about you & your redheads, but then I read this & that last sentence was so very sad.

:(