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"The colors of life shift

within a fixed parameter,

movable blocks of shadow

and light, interchangeable

or not."































"Chaos is a friend of mine." ~Bob Dylan

"Chaos is a friend of mine." ~Bob Dylan
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

An Exercise in Futility

This is a poem I've had in the works for a few years, actually. I get a thought or a phrase or the germ of a poem and I put them into a file. Periodically, I revisit these dormant seeds. Sometimes I discard one or even an entire file. Other times I nurture one of the seeds and see how it grows. This is a fledgling bloom that I feel sure I will revisit and rework from time to time.


I study the smiling photos of
a five-year-old Spiderman grinning,
web slinging into the camera.
I look for shadows
that surely lurked,
like the villain he pretends to slay,
in the corners of his mind or
the curve of his smile.

When did the shadows
creep into his burgeoning psyche
and how did I miss it? One day
the laughter was too shrill, too
over the top, for too long before
the trip down--fast, furious
and frightening. He was tethered to an
out-of-control bungee cord,
furies unleashed.

Searching the photos for clues
I catch a glimpse of five,
white sunshine frozen in time.
I close Pandora’s box knowing
it’s too late to go back.


~~~~~~~Pam Patterson

3 comments:

quid said...

I'm not sure this needs any tinkering at all, Pam. It is stark, realistic, visionary.

quid

Marion said...

It's a great poem, Pammie, and I can almost see the invisible spider webs as I read it. It's so beautiful and bittersweet at the same time....thank you for sharing it.

Kelly said...

This one hit me hard when I read it, Sis.

I think we can all relate to it, in one way or another.