I made the usual mistake of ordering coffee after a late dinner and woke up dreaming that everyone around me has moved on and I can't back to sleep. I don't know why El Paso, Texas is making me think of such things. It could be the wall that will ultimately stretch between San Diego and the Gulf of Mexico that is making me think more about the permanence of seemingly semi-permanent ideas. I suppose this wall is like any other wall in history that is used to keep people in and not necessarily out. The Great Wall of China, The Berlin Wall, Wall Street at some point, the fence between my duplex and my neighbor's house are just such walls, but I realize that there are deeper personal consequences occurring with this particular one.
I once heard a friend of mine say that we as humans have this innate desire/action to narrative-ize our surroundings. When I think of walls that are impenetrable, I think of a story bound within walls or a poem that is clenched inside the throat that cannot be spoken because it's words are not suppose to share the same air as the people who are listening, although the clouds, birds, sunlight, and rain, gather on all sides and even within this particular 'walled-in' narrative. I suppose I just don't get it. Who here in this border town is going to take my job as poet and bring down my wages? I will still welcome more poets from all places to sit with me at odd hours and embrace what little air we have left.
The doves are beginning to call the morning. Someone in the hotel room above me is fumbling in the dark for a light switch.
I look at my LCD lit reflection in the mirror. I imagine a world lit by cell-phone light.
.
I once heard a friend of mine say that we as humans have this innate desire/action to narrative-ize our surroundings. When I think of walls that are impenetrable, I think of a story bound within walls or a poem that is clenched inside the throat that cannot be spoken because it's words are not suppose to share the same air as the people who are listening, although the clouds, birds, sunlight, and rain, gather on all sides and even within this particular 'walled-in' narrative. I suppose I just don't get it. Who here in this border town is going to take my job as poet and bring down my wages? I will still welcome more poets from all places to sit with me at odd hours and embrace what little air we have left.
The doves are beginning to call the morning. Someone in the hotel room above me is fumbling in the dark for a light switch.
I look at my LCD lit reflection in the mirror. I imagine a world lit by cell-phone light.
.
Labels: El Paso mid-sleep crisis
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