Purgatory (In six parts)
I.
Were we all born with amnesia?
Trying to recover our
thoughts and our lives,
the meaning behind
the things we do and say,
as we relearn our pasts?
I’m trying to relocate who I was
and who I’ll be.
Seems like we’ve done this
so many times before
and still I keep forgetting.
Please remind me
again,
just once more.
Who am I?
II.
Lost in the vortex of the universe
I can’t help but feel
a sense of vertigo.
There aren’t any landmarks to help me
no breadcrumbs to lead me back home.
Trapped in my neurosis
I see the stranger.
“Who are you?”
I ask.
“Who are YOU?”
He replies.
“Where am I?”
“Where are WE?”
He replies.
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t know”
He says.
Slowly it makes sense
to me that in the
chaos of the world
my life can’t help but be
chaotic.
I’m crazy because
the world is.
Normal doesn’t exist.
Confusing yes,
but also very reassuring.
III.
It was dark.
Lying on my back
I noticed it.
The light dancing atop the water
reflected onto my ceiling.
Twisting, turning, and rotating
giving and receiving
emptying and filling
with no void being left.
Everything came out equal.
I thought about light and time,
sound and vision.
I wondered if energy was its own creator,
moving out and in
creating a push pull effect?
Were we way off?
Thinking too deeply,
placing a limitation
on the essence of “God?”
Could we possibly comprehend
something so great ?
It seemed easier to worship the tiny
and the minute.
What of that spiraling DNA model?
That twisting of light,
color, molecules and atoms–
the building blocks of all objects?
No dichotomy
of the internal and external.
They mirrored each other.
The answer wasn’t out there.
It was in here.
I needed to align myself
and dance with duality.
I had separated myself
when in reality
I was a part of God.
Not apart from God.
IV. Time Devours Itself
I’m simply matter,
atoms comprised in a big mass
filling up space.
A tiny grain
on a white sandy beach.
All of my experiences
everything I know
registers to
about a speck
of dust compared
to the rest of the universe.
The further I venture out
the more I leave behind.
Faces look the same
melting into oblivion together
walking a path with
only my thoughts to accompany me.
What’s left behind
no longer exists.
What’s ahead
is not quite here.
I may accumulate
more possessions
more acquaintances
and more knowledge
but I’ll never
escape the feeling
of the temporary
as certain death awaits me.
I must face it alone.
V. Beneath the Surface
He made sure to close his closet door at night.
going to bed knowing it would open
as soon as he fell asleep.
His dreams took him to deep dark caverns
full of demons and howling ghouls
that reached for his soul
pulling him under.
He’d wake up frowning
confused and distorted
unaware of whether
he was still asleep and dreaming
or awake to reality.
Or was the reality in his dreams
where his fears,guilt and pain lie,
waiting for him in his subconscious?
VI. Infinity and Beyond
Was God him
and everything in between?
And how could he be nothing
in comparison
to everything else?
The whole was equal to
the sum of the parts
and not to accept
one was not to accept any.
He looked up at the
bright innumerable
stars, with many question
but he already knew.
It was the stench of a lie
told to him
his whole life.
Unanswerable questions
followed by
unquestioned answers.
Of all the contradictions
contraposatives
and contraries,
the biggest
infraction
were the questionable
answers
he’d accepted
like a
pig before a trough
of slop.
It poured out
his skull
like wet
rainy
motor oil
on
a cracked sidewalk.
Of all the entities
in the universe
how could
there ever be one
question
or one
answer
more important
than the others?
~Edward Austin Robertson
Tags: Edward Austin Robertson, poetry
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 