An Almost State of Nearly Being

Call it a triumph of will
or a failure of nerve
but everything I am today
is an assembly line end product
of whom I imagined
I could turn out to be
likes, hates, hopes and dreams
everything long ago decided
prefabricated really
within the workshop of who I was

So instead of whom I could've been
I became a reasoning facsimile
a fax Americana
who'd telegraphed himself his intentions
historical subliminal coded messages
bottled memories programmed to emerge
to remind me whom I could and couldn't be
what I should and shouldn't do
what to feel and not feel

No puzzling ambiguities or difficult choices
no noble labors of actual loss and grief
or joy or love or spontaneity for me
just the self-encapsulation of an entombed peace
known only to this side of the grave
a perpetual almost state of nearly being
that I wouldn't recognize for the shroud of captivity
and premature burial it had long since become

I'd done it
I'd hedged the future
made the world safe from myself
taken that one small step sideways for humanity
that one giant leap straight up and straight down
I'd become hermetically sealed man about town
too bad really
cause I really needed to cry about this

just nail another to the cross
and hoist another round of pain
the sky is vexed with silhouette
out from the shadow comes regret

to die of shade and haunt the day
to wind a clock that runs the tombs
to twist the knob to the catacombs
and enter with song of dearth and thanksgiving
a season of longing for mirth and forgiving

Larry Piltz
[From 1984]