Can't fake the blues
My friend Karen wrote this poem a few years back. I saved it because it made me think about the things that still drape around my neck like a 10 ton necklace.
Tabula Rasa
Come to me without your life
hanging around you
I don't want you draped with
barbed wire and bunting
the ribbons of past love
streaming from your hair
a child on each ankle and
one in your arms, the reflections
of other men in the invisible tears
they left on your cheeks.
Let me disentangle you.
Duck your head, dear,
I'll unclasp this from around
your neck, lift your white arms
while I unhook and slip it off,
I'll peel away this part
so gently, see there?
You are denuded. Lift up,
I'll wash you inside and
out, and fill you so full
there is no more room
for anyone or anywhere else.
KGB 2002
Tabula rasa: A need or an opportunity to start from the beginning. There is something so enticing about starting again--from the beginning. Starting fresh.
But, it is the past life hanging around the neck of another that draws me most. The best stuff lives in experience. If you want to play the blues, it is called mileage. You may be technically correct, but you have to have the goods to back it up. You can't pull those soulful notes until you have the mileage to make the tones rich and genuine. You can't fake life and you can't fake the blues.
Tabula rasa. A chance to do it again. Insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting different results. Freedom. Choosing a different street.
4 comments:
Where have all your commenters gone? Oh where, oh where can they be? With their comments cut short and their gauchos cut long, oh where oh where...???
Here here for tabula rasa!
You leave my gotcha gauchos out of this.
I refuse to be classed as a gaucho-wearer, whether they be short or long!
"The best stuff" about another person can lie in experience, but in most instances, I think I'd rather talk to an inexperienced idealist rather than an embittered cynic. A non-embittered cynic would be best, though. One of Mom's favorite phrases was always, "Get better, not bitter."
--DJ
Doh! I knew I shoulda listened to your mom.
Post a Comment