Monday, February 10, 2014

Saturday Evening

This is the poem I didn't want to write

For to pen it is to pen the frailty of my own dreams
And of me

Once when I was shining I convinced myself, as all shining things do, that my sheen would emanate forever
Never put out by the black curtain of death
Or, more resoundingly, by the grey curtain of life

Now all that's iridescent is not my spirit,
But the shimmering smoke of the bar, the gleam of the sun in my unwilling morning eyes
The glitter of glass bottles and momentary abandon
The false belief that it will all one day

Get better

And shine again

I remain here
No longer young, but still deluded
No longer shining, but still aflame

Lost in the haze of broken promise that was thrust upon us,
But for which we will be blamed
A generation whose greatest fault was to be born when it was

But maybe some of us brought it on ourselves

Maybe I did
Maybe I did

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The Long, Dark Night


In the nearly six years I've been blogging, I've never been absent from the site for so long. I'm not taking a hiatus or anything of that sort--in truth, I can't imagine it--but I am pausing the narrative that's proceeded uninterrupted here since 2008. Back then, everything seemed like a progression leading to something else. Now, with the economic dislocation of of the last decade persisting into the middle part of this one, a number of my plans have been thrown into the air.

For the first time in a long time, I'm uncertain. Not regarding my eventual success--as uncertainty in that quarter has plagued me for years--but regarding what path I even want to take. What now? Teaching? A second undergraduate degree? Journalism? Public relations? Which of those is even attainable? And what will I do in the meantime?

So if I'm circumspect, please forgive me. It's not that I don't want to share, just that I'm not sure what's actually happening. And with everything changing so quickly, I don't want to begin telling threads that might just peter off. So for the moment we'll say that things are unmoored. And I'll let you know when that changes.