Memorial Day
Arriving at this point
without knowledge of the journey,
the slow collapse and internal
dampening – the shutting down, the closing in – lost
in the shadowed veil, my eyes flutter open to find
everything in its place, yet
altered, as if viewed from a single step
closer at a different height, offering a disturbing
clarity. Looking up, I wonder that she wakes me
from a dream of dogs on this, of all days,
only to detect under me linoleum in place of the bed,
my glasses skewed from the impact,
the floor and left side of my head wet. You looked
like you were reaching for something, she says,
and perhaps I was, though with hand outstretched
I found nothing to hold but the darkness.
“Memorial Day” was first published in Eclectica in July 2014, and was, much to my delight, subsequently included in Eclectica Magazine’s 20th Anniversary Best Poetry Anthology.
O at the Edges 
Your writing has a particular voice, a soothing voice. In a world of angst, you find wonder in the world around you and in every circumstance. I enjoy reading you.
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Thank you, Will. I can’t help but find wonder in the world, even in this troubling time.
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Eclectica knows quality when they see it,obviously. This one is indeed particularly good. It has a quality I have no name for but like, one I’ve found in descriptive bits by Raymond Chandler that hint of dark complexities about to unfold.
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Thank you, Angela. I’d never have connected this to Chandler (one of my favorite authors), but love that you have.
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I love Chandler too. That bit about “Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.” said as much about the human condition as any “great authors”.
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Chandler is literature, as far as I’m concerned.
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“… nothing to hold but the darkness.” I’ve felt this many times.
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Thank you, Carolin. It’s seldom enough, but often is all we have.
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got to love that “lost” teetering on the brink of its own or some other abyss.
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It’s a familiar feeling, but not as common now as it was in my younger days.
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O those tumults of youth that havoc us.
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Good stuff, my friend. Well done. I’m glad you shared it again!
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Thank you, David.
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This is powerful, Bob. I’m reminded of my uncle Martin, who went to war in 1918 as a bright, friendly and responsible kid. When he returned two years later, he was an alcoholic mess, and remained so until two years before his death at 68.
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Thanks, George. He was not alone in this, sad to say.
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