Requiem for the Other Self

   I

Look, could you even imagine: growing up

circumventing the globe meant coming back

here. All our ancient animosities still

unresolved--they haven't forgotten--you

remember how it was. The unbearable

weight waiting for something to break free.

Honest now, did you ever believe any

one gave a damn how we ended up?

Sure, they talked a great game,
said all the right things, but
deep down we knew what
they actually thought: 'Fodder for the mills,
these sons of b*****s,' next generation's
metal-heads. I remember
reading Kerouac until my fingers bled,
never certain who to emulate:
Paradise Smith, or Pomeray--the watcher
or the doer?--ultimately neither. I bent
the rules (never enough
to break them.) More Clash
than Pistols, a minor Costello

snarling from the sidelines.
Full bore cynicism, high tide righteous
indignation. S**t I'd swallowed
enough to know nobody gave a f**k
what I thought. There wasn't any
Brave New World Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

II

So, I drifted down to the west coast

looking for horny toads,

sat up on a dark night

making plans

until I found out the pie don't taste so sweet

if you spend your life looking

for love in all the wrong places.

III

I found the new religion.
Put on a happy smile, shirt
and tie. Made nice
picket fence hosannas

for conspicuously consumptive
consumers.

We all got what we needed.

More or less.

IV

Until Damascus.

Middle-of-the-road

denominational dilemma--

bathing in Jordan.

Forty seemed too old

to be carrying on--
rebels age poorly
beyond thirty-nine.

I wrestled the dark
continent--

a lost decade

coming back to faith

shedding isms

left right center

pared to nothing
but skin and bones.

V

See, I never
considered growing up much
of an option:

starting over at fifty
would have been inconceivable

to the twenty something.

Now, the man

I was meant to be
far from perfect still
too cynical 

certainly seems immeasurably 

more human.

Ken e Bujold

© 2022

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

I don’t know how I missed this poem but it fascinates in the same way a deja vu of a night terror might.

My journeys were inward but I too was past 50 starting again. I’m glad we both survived.

Winston

[Red Brick Keshner]

A filled journey it would seem. I've been on the other side of Jordan across the river where the international border was a rope that swayed in the current. Starting over in the fifties when it wasn't on the horizon to the view of a twenty-something. And as I would like to think, properly positive cynicism is realism.

[Ken e Bujold]

it's all autobiographical. for me the last stanza is my self-analysis of how long it's taken me to pass through youth to something akin to inner tranquility. Life's been a great ride, perhaps a bit more tumultuous than some might have enjoyed, but I am far happier now than I was back then in my early 30s, and a hell of a lot wiser for the journey.
Still a cynic though, it's what gets me through the days :)

[Red Brick Keshner]

some folk might refer to that as late blooming but I personally think that it is an individual timeline and probably has very little to do with the 'blooming' that appears to be the key reference point. This is very relatable as I was still 'unsettled' (for lack of a better term) in my early 30s. And although my bent is toward playing the cynic it isn't always expressed that way. Thanks for the resonance.

[S.zaynab.kamoonpury]

Woah what a journey through life you've chronicled in a fab interesting poem. Great if you meant you visited Jordan and Damascus, wonder places. Kudos for the fine poem!


Plz also read and comment on any of my two newest poems as per your preference.

[Ken e Bujold]

I have indeed been to Jordan. And while my road to Damascus wasn't quite as dramatic as Paul's, the story of this poem is autobiographical, my road to enlightenment.

Ken e