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Art
November 2009 
and I will never know you
Posted on Oct 20th, 2009
by 
Doug
Doug
It's OK I got your last message
in the space the silence left
A ring flinged into the muddied river
it's all such a dream
row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream
merily...
And I know it's all slight of hand
and my own hands fool me
into feeling
I have touched
and what I have touched
is the ragged edge of disconnection
That I offer an empty gesture
nothing but winded.
How is it that I could love you?
and the hours pass into day, into week,
years that I don't have to give you now
Other then my words
which I gave to you
and that is all
I could ever give you.
Is this how I make you feel
when I go away,
when I slip off the edge of this tenuous image world?
a world where I can't touch you
fingers, tongue, blood.
but I sent you me
in the shape of letters
for you to weave our worlds.
I thought you dreamed me?
On the pink highways of New Mexico
your phone does not answer me
I can't see you in the dust storms here
On the dark hills of Vermont
I couldn't forget you
You told me you wouldn't meet me there
I waited til my shadow fell
I paid the rent
on the cabin,
two nights I paid
and it was empty
the bed unslept in
because you were never coming to me.
How many times will you dis-invite before I disintegrate,
disengage, disappear, dis-remember?
Why, for these minimal guarded words you give me now,
do I spill my gifts for you?
And why would I care now,
now that even my words are invisible to you?
in the space the silence left
A ring flinged into the muddied river
it's all such a dream
row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream
merily...
And I know it's all slight of hand
and my own hands fool me
into feeling
I have touched
and what I have touched
is the ragged edge of disconnection
That I offer an empty gesture
nothing but winded.
How is it that I could love you?
and the hours pass into day, into week,
years that I don't have to give you now
Other then my words
which I gave to you
and that is all
I could ever give you.
Is this how I make you feel
when I go away,
when I slip off the edge of this tenuous image world?
a world where I can't touch you
fingers, tongue, blood.
but I sent you me
in the shape of letters
for you to weave our worlds.
I thought you dreamed me?
On the pink highways of New Mexico
your phone does not answer me
I can't see you in the dust storms here
On the dark hills of Vermont
I couldn't forget you
You told me you wouldn't meet me there
I waited til my shadow fell
I paid the rent
on the cabin,
two nights I paid
and it was empty
the bed unslept in
because you were never coming to me.
How many times will you dis-invite before I disintegrate,
disengage, disappear, dis-remember?
Why, for these minimal guarded words you give me now,
do I spill my gifts for you?
And why would I care now,
now that even my words are invisible to you?
Access: Public
Doug, your way with words, never ceases to move me. Somehow this piece makes me feel like I can breathe underwater.
Hi Shanti Thank You! Yes I'm doing a little bottom feeding for sure, but it's good to dive in all the way. So many experiences pass by without us really feeling them and it's all too rich to just eat and not savor it.
It does really make me feel, oh how it brings back memories, although mine are not yours of course—except perhaps as they touch on the universal in everything, in experience, in pain, in wondering wha', why, and all the other wh's—and eventually even acceptance. You made me dive deep.
Awesome photo as well, the lonely, high road, this way to … hell? heaven? where do we want to go and what will it take to get there and aren't they flip sides of the same coin? and beyond that, isn't it all one anyway?
All roads lead to resolution, a mantra running through the corridors of my mind lately.
(Don't I just run on? Your words take me…)
Thank you!
Ruth
Thank you Ruth! Yes I believe we all have a rich reserve of experiencing connection/disconnection. And god how it feels so good, tears your heart out as we run from the remnants to find the illusion of wholeness in another.
A part of me still believes, even if it only happens in art, in stories, still that is real. But another part of me wants to linger in the emptiness, because at some point something else rushes in, something that fills me with the conviction/feeling that I am connected to everyone who walks alone. It's very freeing.
wow Doug, this really hits my secondlife experience. People meet there, fall “in love” through words, most never to meet in the physical world. Yet, I wonder, if the virtual world is not more us, unmasked to some degree, from that which we don in real life…
Hi Sprite! Now don't tell me you got a SL divorce! Hell you just got “married “;-)
Yes, that is a very good point and I agree we are not the roles we play but the roles we choose give us form, so we can be visible to each other.
What makes the internet less real is the level of commitment and the level of effort required to get close to someone. I can virtually move in with you in a heartbeat, fling you into my worlds and then shut off my computer next week.
Well I wouldn't do that to you Spritely, but it happens. It does in real life too but you'd have to see me to get your clothes again.
I am still sl married, lol. So that's where my clothes went. Guess I have to come to California to retreive them, grin.
so poignant - love you muchly
just discovered this one:
This night, agitated by the growing storm,
how it has suddenly expanded its dimensions–,
that ordinarily would have gone unnoticed,
like a cloth folded, and hidden in the folds of time.
Where the stars give resistance it does not stop there,
neither does it begin within the forest's depths,
nor show upon the surface of my face
nor with your appearance.
The lamps keep swaying, fully unaware:
is our light lying?
Is night the only reality
that has endured through thousands of years?
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Rainer Maria Rilke
Cool Sprite! So you wouldn't be needing any clothes then? Lol!
Love you too Nicole and TY for the poem. Very Nice!