Between Two Worlds.

by Craig S. Marlatt - copyright 1997

(This is a poem I wrote many years ago that is the Title of my book of poetry carrying the same name. I don’t know why I felt I should post this tonight but for some reason it seems to me like it is a window into the uncertainty much our world is experiencing at this current time.)

Caught between two worlds am I, the one of beauty − the one of sighs, the one of truth − the one of lies and right between am I.

The written Word it speaks of love but living is not for the dove. The eagles wait to crush her breast and feast upon her gentleness in death.

The little kings that dwell this world, to make mine theirs is not unheard. To make theirs mine I have to be like them, and I don’t want to be like them.

I crash headlong in optimism leering and cushion my fall with hope of His appearing to make things right, and waiting and watching. Just another chance to hope in something.

But in my naiveté I become concerned. Who is it that has ordered this descent into the carbon prison of past lives, where silver bullets ricochet but shed no blood?

And peeking from the corner ‘round the bend, someone who gave a warning now and then. The same one that did court my tired way with discontentment and philosophy.

Two levels there must be, one up one down. No one can safely cross this and return to what he was, to help those that are now imprisoned in the life he once so sordid lived.

So staying put is just a safety net. And turning my back to what is calling out, why should I not just settle and amuse myself with fathers who will tell me what went wrong?

I chuckle as I note this way of life. If ordered I can know contentment there but find contenders eager for a crown to disembowel and gorge upon my youth.

So satisfied was I to have such youth. But now this grinding gear doth cry for oil, but now this muddled oil doth call for sand to smooth away the burning that is hardened.

Is this why nature breathes in sweet appeal to those who’ve wandered far and took their breath of oceans salty in some distant place where no one speaks their names except in silence?

A silence that once spoke so loud, but now is gone from every memory − except the wind that blows within the privacy thus earned by tolerating life with such deep feeling.

Is this why beauty smells like fresh cut dew? Like lilies floating by the bristled shore. Their petals softened by the blowing wind, swallowing up the memories passing overhead.

So caught between two worlds I’ll probably abide and quit my wondering to seek the distant why. And rest my feet in saying uncle, uncle to life and all it’s henchmen that do come.

Just like another fool upon a hill No one is listening but to comment gibely. The caring is so obviously missing, the content has been robbed by love of nothing,

Those things I never loved but now am missing, because in my not wanting I have found them. The only things that leave me with intriguing; the only things that hold a strange beguiling.

The end