One by One
What happens when your myths fail, one by one:
the moon above the mountain’s just the moon,
the end of candle glow can’t come too soon.
Or when you think the day is finally done
another window opens on the view
you’d held as sacrosanct, its history
so full of what you thought was meant to be,
replaced, now, by events dead-drably new?
Or when you knew what happened surely would—
no one could love you that much, or that long—
the world is made of death, and hurt and wrong,
and, daily, evil suffocates your mood.
So why this happiness? Why think this way?
Those myths were hardly worth believing in.
Open your eyes! This moon, it must have been,
today, that drove the myths of youth away.
The Other Mind
A thought appears without my having done
a thing to make it happen, like the first
and every line of verse up to this point…
why does it happen—and in such a burst—
as if another mind wished to anoint
a thought while it is only half begun?
Take note: that other mind does make mistakes;
it likes to start you off on tangents so
divorced from inspiration nothing will
enliven what refuses, still, to grow
and help you gather courage for the kill.
Yes. To fail at times is what it takes.
One mind nudges the other mind in line
to let them both but neither take the lead;
let mind with mind and line with line combine.
Donald Wheelock has published in Think, Able Muse, The Orchards, Ekphrasis, Blue Unicorn and many other journals welcoming formal poetry. His chapbook, In the Sea of Dreams, is available from Gallery of Readers Press. His first full-length book of poems, It’s Hard Enough to Fly, appeared last September from Kelsay Books. David Robert Books will publish his second book, With Nothing But a Nod, next spring.
Sparks of Calliope 