No Man's Land

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

It seems I’m caught between competing instances,

the push of past and pull of future,

nearest bit of each disguised as ‘now,’

the mask of an eternal present.

And here I stand:

empty as the eye of a needle

through which the thread of all must hang,

history and destiny drawn slack,

‘til someday they shall serve to scribe a kind of ragged seam,

and unify this narrative of dreams.

Here,

a patient link

in the contingent tale,

cleaving to each instant, first and last,

listening for fanfares and echoes

of distant ends and fast receding means;

spinning a biography

to binding futures

sprung from some unknown predicate;

working through familiar inklings

though without a syllogistic claim…

The racing times clamoring to distract:

new and new and new,

whole worlds turning in the instant,

madnesses and bright imaginings—

I would be grateful even for what madness would convey.

Now, sharpening my seeing to that needle’s point,

finally to know those things my fates may soon endow,

when—

far too soon,

each dawning moment

slips to some other

now…