the table and the cup

sometimes it's good to say out loud 'nothing has happened'
that i feel weary and chilled is of no consequence
and that i run about the streets all day is of my own conscience

i defened myself although i know it's all over
a moment more and everything will have lost it's meaning
the table and the cup and the chair to which i'm clinging

mine is a lonely face i thought to raise
and sought for some familiar thing
for someone i'd once seen
but there was nothing there

there will come a day when my hand is far from me
and when i bid it to write it will write words i don't mean
when my harp is tuned to mourning and my organ the voice of the weeping

with a somnambulic certainity i drag back my deepest fears
a childhood illness i had conquered begins in me again
the fear that i might betray myself and tell you all that i dread

mine is a lonely face i thought to raise
and sought for some familiar thing
for someone i'd once seen
but there was nothing there

and if i fall asleep the fears, the fears, the fears
that i might swallow a piece of coal
or a number might begin to grow
in my brain until there's nothing left there

albany, august 2007