Some memorable stuff here, Ken. I like 'downslid' and 24 being 'grand and gladdening'. At 24, I was a year off the smokes. Hardly grand but I'm glad I stuck to it. Largely.
Bill
> On 29 May 2014, at 12:28 pm, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Been a while since I posted here. Just a flood that wanted out. A title stolen from Berryman. More here to be done.
>
> Ken
>
> "Nobody Is Ever Missing"
>
> As long as I've lived, I collect them:
> not just my dead (for by now I do not know
> who lives still, who is truly dead),
> for I am here, the resurrection and the life,
> making them all equal in my sight,
> the great chain of unsorted being that
> every night floats from the walls,
> parading in formation
> drawing nothing from me, only repotting
> memories and revived anger at chances
> missed and taken, at joys recalled,
> albeit long ago--things I cannot renounce
> but that will never come again.
>
> How downslid is my life that I
> can still recall laughter in the dark,
> burning cigarette ends, delight after love,
> moments taken, gone by, fled
> but nor forgotten. How long
> have I lived that I remember 24
> as grand and gladdening,
> that each day the sun rose on newness?
> I can name the women who loved me,
> who hurt me, who I loved and hurt as well.
> Thus the continuum of time remembered,
> no one ever missing, a banquet
> to banish starvation and nourish recall
> not total but molded to wishes and lies.
>
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