Monday Poem

Wakening
Jim Culleny

1 Facing Goliath

Like wound springs we wait inside a medic's room
my dearest friend and lover sits upon the table.

We do the ritual things we do
we laugh against doom.

Like David with his stone
we do the tiny things we're able.


2  The Surgeon Said

Some days I think
lies would serve us best
but this is my delusion

How could I choose
to ditch what's real
for a figment of my imagination,
isn't that the definition of a fool?

Whatever it is it's here so deal with it.

So sorry, the surgeon said,
about the biopsy.


3 The Cardelaveo Abyss

Without you would be the
Cardelaveo Abyss
which is no place I know
or which even exists
unless by coincidence
because I just made it up
to convey the vast emptiness
I would know without you.


4 Wakening
— On being up in a 2:00 am funk

What I was doing up
was being down
not in a dreadful sense
but in the way of anyone
suddenly too tuned to everyday events
once hidden in convenient clouds
but now laid bare
as an avocado pit
exposed in half a fruit
staring at the heart if it
and first time seeing it
from head to boot.

..