Purgatory

© 30 July 2005, The Griot Poet

Eye am below Heaven and above hell
where familiar spirits dwell.

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

Oldies songs take me back to the seventies:
before sex;
before bills;
before marriage;
before responsibilities.

Eye remember
all eye ever wanted to do was to
make an honest living.

Somewhere in my story, eye discovered
[John] Milton's nine-level purgatory.

Vision... became lust;
"doing whatever it takes," violating sacred trusts.

If the soul is
the mind,
the will,
the imagination,
the emotions
and the intellect:
eye sold it!

When do visions become vain imaginations?
When does goal-setting lead to coveting?

Thrust into responsibilities before eye was trained and ready,

eye skipped down the "Primrose path" -- eye wide shut -- in "no mind,"
forgetting that
"action without thought"
takes prior planning
and much practice.

So, here am eye
at forty-three
feeling less like
Solomon
and more like
Ecclesiastes *

My prayers as the
vain repetition
of a heathen

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

*: Ecclesiastes 1: 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.