You Have to be Another
https://oderickson.com/ode/wp-content/audio/You HaveToBeAnotherVx3.mp3
To know yourself, you
have to be another
or another’s dream;
a pirate or other vague fancy,
and steal when it is most quiet
into the dark of your eye,
through the thin of your soul
which never gave to any one,
wandering along chasms
which no crowd ever throngs,
along the deadly vein of regret,
the longing for something slipped and gone,
down throats of cries, fissures of pain,
stages of shifting innocence and death,
seen, but forgotten in time.
You have to be a pirate or a thief
with a lust for gold, in good health,
moving holding your breath,
your hands in front of your face
to shield you in the conspiring dark,
from smell of the cruel, complacent earth.
You have to be another
or another’s dream
borne through furthest aisles and retreats,
hearing the shocked gasp of nature.