(record)

There seems to be
no record
that I have lived
my life.
At least not
the ones we’re
supposed to leave.
Payroll records
documenting
what we have
earned.
I do not know,
cannot remember.
It seems sometimes
I did not
exist.
I have to turn
to other maps.
I can always
recall
what music
I listened to
when.
The way
the Moody Blues
Om made me feel.
I played
my music
loud then,
disturbing
married neighbors
who went to bed
early.
During one of
my worst jobs
I listened
to a lot
of Taj Mahal.
I was always
trying to survive
outside the perimeter
of where the world
said I should be.
I knew it then,
but see it now
with more
compassion.

It’s just
the pure thing in all of them
got mixed up
with all the rest.
So that path
turned into stance
or attitude or pose
replaced conviction.
I’m lenient
with myself
only because
I had no guides,
no place names
even to ask
about.

And when I did
I only got
you can’t get there
from here,
mostly from men
who were going
the same way –
no, not the same
way, that is the
point.
They wanted
the same place
with a different way
of getting there.

I learned
to live
on the layer
where I lived
alone.
With forays out
attempting
to tell about it.
To people who
mostly said
you can’t be
there.

I’m sad sometimes
my life seems so
non-concrete
but concrete
can be so un
accomodating,
except when
it says certain
things – like
a winter sunlight
on my picnic baskets
and the prism’s
rainbow
on the tile
floor.

1/30/99