Written by: Larry Sansone. In order to hone my writing skills (and for my own silly amusement) I am launching the O.C.P. Project: one poem per day for one year. I started the project on Jan.1, 2011 and completed the last poem on Jan. 1, 2012. Poems will be posted daily, whenever possible.
The clocks keep stopping on my shelves,
Despite my fawning diligence,
To keep them wound and running well,
In clean, unhindered temperance.
And yet their ticking slows and wanes.
I find them stalled, the hours missed.
Is lack of balance to be blamed,
Perhaps some need of maintenance?
Or else is this some subtle sign,
The frozen moments show to me,
A caution not to press my time,
But venture forward patiently.
Far better to have moments lost,
Than count each one obsessively,
Lest seconds measure bitter cost,
Of hours which have known no peace.
In troubled times we longingly,
Think fondly of the everyday,
And crave plain mundane, normalcy,
The times between our disarray.
But as such climates come to be,
And our recoveries assumed,
We may crave kindly sympathies,
For well concealed, yet tender wounds.
Alas, the humdrum casts it's spell,
And through it's chatter we must know,
That those who know us wish us well,
And thus tend to forget our woes.
Sinking slowly under, grasping light and gasping air,
Drifting through the sorted shadows left from days gone by,
caught along the current's edge 'twixt comfort and despair,
Singing sorrow's symphony of laughter, screams, and sighs.
When will I emerge from these dark brooding depths i've found?
Can one swim to shore, once so far stranded and estranged?
Or perhaps, not fight the tide nor fear that i may drown,
But let the water fill my lungs and know that I am changed.
An uncoiled, loosened, lifeless spring,
A damaged object of my care,
Oh how I mourned this broken thing,
Which you might fix if you were there.
But then so much to my surprise,
A patient calmness came to me.
As though viewed through your watchful eyes,
Your deftness and your clarity.
I carried out the quick repairs,
And wondered as I worked the parts,
Remembrance conquers all despair,
And mends the clockwork of the heart.
At 1 AM a light went on,
And that which smoldered was put out.
At last a hollow want was gone,
A worried mind made free from doubt.
A broken thing made whole at last,
A fissure finally set to heal,
What once had haunted in the past,
From ghostly visage was made real.
Where all was lost, and swept beyond,
A simple hopeful glimmer shines.
At 1AM a light went on,
And with it darkness from my mind.
There comes a time when we must choose retreat,
Denying every urge to forge ahead.
Despite our wish to press on valiantly,
We must fall back and leave the fight instead.
All pressure, expectation, and desire,
Compels our courage and our steady force,
Yet greater show of strength must be required,
To halt, declining from such steady course.
This life shall never cease it's challenges,
One ending conflict follows with the next,
And hope of finding one's survival is,
In choosing which are fought or laid to rest.
The patience we must learn oft proves to be,
The truest measure of one's bravery.
Advisors oft prepare you to expect the very worst,
So if, by random happenstance, Ill fortune should befall,
One might pretend these portents have predicted danger first,
And claim perhaps your losses lessened by this early call.
That is, unless you find success or earn prosperity.
At this, you will be told your gains are solely justified,
By full reliance on the guidance that you have received.
Yet, none may know the future. Thus assume yourself advised.