A Reason For Being

A poem like a story, or a song, or yarn, a tale, a communication, or just a conversation has a reason for being. Thoughts come to mind that need to be, are itching to be, amplified. 

The following poem, A Cry From Mid-Space, was written at a time in my life when those things I dreamt about doing were not going to happen. In a long life, unrealized dreams are commonplace, they move on in spite of your desires to be fulfilled. They enable you  now to dream anew. When we lose the capacity to dream the flames of hope flicker out and the path to fulfillment blurs until a new spark lights the way for new dreams to occur. 

What's the old adage ? "It's not the number of times you're knocked down but, what counts, is the number of times you get back up.
                   
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         Cry From Mid-Space 

God damned you Dreams, whore no more to me, release me
To covet grayness bleating from a sullen sky.
Don't show me violets pure nor roses gay that cry
My inter soul awake. No !  I must not think free.

Chain my mind, please stem that emotion swell
Within this hide so I do not hope in vain.
In image of his maker, common man can train
As oxen are yoked to circle around the well.

I can not define mid - space where dreamers dwell,
Far sight a scene then slowly squint it into
Mental pictures, like a frosted pane looked through, 
Is it real ? Is it heaven ? Is it ? Well, is it, hell ?

Theater must be hell for a lost dreamer's soul :
Not in dance around soothing flames and crackling sounds
That flow the senses' veins; but of grey ash mounds 
Staged of choking soot waiting to fill a dreamer's hole.

Accept the young, they have not traversed the gorge 
Left by dreamers old whose torrent thoughts erode.
Fill the young with placid manna lest they explode
With alien notions thinking they're their own Saint George. 

Dreams - damn you !  Lay not your head on my breast this day.
Free me, so I may see what our Nation antes up :
Those dull, brow bent cast of actors who hold the cup,
Which keeps America hostage and wastes a dreamer's play.

Ronald C . Downie