Photo by David Bayliss on Unsplash
A Short Talk on Pain
Prompted by Anne Carson’s Short Talk on Pain,
(Although I agree, Frozen green peas are good for pain.)
A short talk on pain?
No, no. I don’t think so.
Let’s change the subject.
Let’s deflect our attention.
Besides, what is there to say?
How to express pain? No longer suppress
a silent scream, emit a primal cry?
How best to convey the sensation
of existential angst? No one escapes it.
Whether psychic or physical, pain
is part of our shared experience,
intrinsic to this human existence.
So, shall we set the subject aside.
to discuss at some later date?
For the present, shall we pretend
to take pain in stride, gritting our teeth,
maintaining a stiff upper lip,
asking our imaginations to grasp hands
and hearts, leading us into healing
green pastures, where we can inhale
the chlorophyll-filled air,
letting the sun resurrect our spirits,
detoxifying terrifying thoughts, moving us
in synch with the upbeat, putting a skip in our step,
holding fast to the fantastical, while whistling in the wind,
as for one transcendent moment, although bent,
we no longer feel broken...
The Same Old Scenario
Whiplash words shatter self-esteem, and then,
in an abrupt about-face, you ask for forgiveness,
suggest we kiss and make up, act as if
nothing has happened.
But I’m weary of these repetitive Scenes
from a Marriage missing domestic-bliss,
and if, as you insist, the fault lies with me,
shouldn’t it be I who begs for forgiveness?
Dizzying to rationalize this roller-coaster existence.
If only your apologies resulted in script revision,
but it’s too late now to re-edit the real, delete
the repeat reenactment of the irrational.
I no longer can dismiss this treatment
as cinematic history, your bullying behavior
left lying on the cutting room floor,
categorized as What’s done is done.
No, too ill-advised, too unwise
to continue to compromise,
to forgive and forget,
and numbly get on with it,
while suffering
the same old, same old
scenario of sorry.
No, no, no.
The end of story!
lips stained with what they have tasted*
*From Even the Vanishing Housed
by Jane Hirschfield
oh, yes, yes,
and the way bittersweet flavors stick to the tongue,
and the way the hands appear to be etched
with what they have tenderly or callously touched,
and the way in which visions, real or imagined,
in bleak black and white or bright color,
remain on the retina,
and the lungs,
the way the lungs have expanded
from deeply-inhaled falsehoods and truths,
and the emotions, oh, yes, the emotions,
the way they’ve enlarged the heart,
and that life-long list of incidents
engraved on the brain,
the people, the places,
the many moments memorialized
with indelible sensory impressions...