Reclamation

Caught you skulking in the shadows,
Scurrying from town to town,
Glimpsed you sat at the bar in some southern hotel,
Idly stirring a cold dank coffee cream,
You are like a faint rash, a feint accomplice,
You are the sediment of my deepest draught,
The ridiculous dream of faithless friends,
How I would squeeze the life out of you,
Should you come within reach,
But, No, you are the unseen shadow, the slippery soap, the unscratched back,
Speak to me, you, the muted minister of my self doubt,
.............
.............
Speak to me
............
............
'Time was when I didn't need you,
Time was when I had my own life,
Time was when we were friends'
............
'Cast out in this splendid isolation,
Cast out to peddle like a paupered soul
Cast out to watch, observe the distance'
...........
'When will you let me come home?
When will you bathe me, waive the sorrows I caused?
When will you heal my withered hands?'
..........
Lets's meet again you and I
Not for gain or recrimination but just for something to do
You know sort of like young men do
When they know not how to tune their hearts,
Let's find the ways that rebuilt the trust once lost,
Through nothingness chats that pass the time,
And prove that we no longer have the will to kill or maime,
After you, no after you, no after you, please do
The great skulkers stumble on in an autustic embrace
On into the possibilities of the male condition,
On into the white light that will fuse our bones once more.
Beyond the muck and blood of our unspoken separation

(This is a poem that wrote itself. There was no thought or idea in my mind when I started it so I suppose it is a stream of consciousness from somewhere. Something or nothing can be made of it. So what do I make of it now in hindsight? I think it is about the reality of our fragmented psyches i.e. the idea that we are made up of many sub-personalities that vie for control and dominance and don't always agree with each other! This is the central theme of the psychological model of transactional analysis with its sub-personalities of parent, adult and child and the internal dialogue that these 'energetic states' engage in as they struggle for their identity and role within the overall 'I'. In this poem, two sub-personalities have been fighting each other, one has 'won' the fight and banished the other, denying it a voice or a presence until now reluctantly inviting it 'back to the table'. We hear the banished fragment pleading to return and to be forgiven. As the poem nears its ending we learn that these are two 'masculine' sub-personalities that are not necessarily that emotionally intelligent :) ('The great skulkers stumble on in an autustic embrace'). Still, in their own awkward way, they seek reconciliation and the psyche reclaims its completeness. You cannot 'kill off' these internal voices without destroying your authenticity - though many of us spend many years trying to do just that!)