My Poetry

SOLILOQUY


Contemplating inner spaces--empty aching inner places
where wellings should belong.
Examining faint feelings that elude my apprehending
like the title of a half-forgotten song.
Suspecting lack of motivation based on something being taken
from the pleasure centers of the mind;
taken from the driving will that kept me moving on until
I knew within myself I was alive.
Looking for a spark to kindle energy for some new passion,
some new way to spend a day that's not a task.
Pondering why there is no yearning that would guide me to a turning
from these tearful visions filtered from the past.
Searching for imagination that would lead to inspiration--
would lead to more than resignation, to more than marking time.
Days were meant for more that counting, years for more than passing,
time for more than filling with a rhyme.
But I do not find much comfort in the places where I seek it,
and when I sit and wait it doesn't come to me.
I surely hope my sorrow will be lightened on the morrow,
that there'll be a better cure for this ennui.

--Harlow B. Staley (c) Dec 9th, 1996