...

I wish I could be someone else,
my shadow, my scar reminds me...

A sequence of sounds that
have no meaning
the words dont fit
and tell me nothing
all but that there was something else
there
once.

A picture, a photo
surely some other sized shoe,
fragments of rememberances,
I was like that - really?
A faint scent of something familiar
old sock drawer, mother's perfume,
strawberry scented school erasers
sweaty smell of the roller rink,
bruises and bitches,
little girl britches.

Fingerprints of my past
my memory an empty vase
now marked in chinks and flaws
but empty none the less.
an empty castle of locked doors.

My knowing calls like an old friend
12 missed messages
when will we catch up again?
I look for you in the sun lit field,
by the lake, by the water wheel.
Where are you old once-was-me?
we need a re-membering
and comforting against life's winds.

my hands age the fastest
my neck line too
days pass too quickly
and Ive still so much to do
but the re-membering is vital
to the youth of my heart and soul
to know thyself is thy power
and wisdom when I grow old.

Be Drunken

Be Drunken, always.

That is the point; nothing else matters.

If you would not feel the horrible burden of time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please.

But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken!"

Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please...

-Charles Baudelaire