Pam Coulter Blehert

Bringing to the table

This world is set up for failure. It's the easiest thing to do.
No matter what you do, it is overshadowed by
your outright failure or your potential to fail,
or the ways in which - while you weren't looking -
you inadvertently failed. It's set up to
recognize failure. Even Idi Amin leaves
a bloody track through 8 years of history
and millions of nameless men and women
lead damaged and unfulfilling lives or,
having created something,
find no one who either has
time to be or is
interested in
it.

And you did try, you do try.
No one says you're not trying but
it's not good enough. It's
never good enough. Spring is going to
come in over it, young men
are going to demand their turn,
the weak will envy you, even
your friends find your self-
involvement boring, turn
a deaf ear, at last,
to your lament.

And perhaps the bravest thing
to do is to go on beating this
and having fun in the process.
Because, above all,
what we bring to
the table that
can't be harmed -
not really - is
our sense of
play.

Bad Night

Despair shook me awake in the wee hours,
took me in hand, sat me in a chair.
Though I did try to ignore her
she wrapped me in her icy arms and pointed out
the barren beaches of my life, its stagnant sea.
There was no hope, no love, no merriment.
Whatever I had done fell short.
In her grip, I'm seized with rigor, burned with cold.

Sometime during the night she slipped away,
leaving only the old brown husk of her,
her peculiar smell.

The sun seeps through an upstairs window,
carelessly paints leaf-lace.
Wherever I spent the night,
I am here now.

Dance

I danced for the rush
or for the thrill of it.
I danced to the sun, to the harvest,
to the family of man.
I danced fast, putting fields and mountains
behind me, slow and stately, like
the elm. I danced for the gods.

When I stopped being able to dance,
I watched the dance,
and my feet wiggled to it.