Pure escapism
I’ll bet she’s the type that
secretly reads door-stop Gothics
and would go for a square cleft jaw
and strong silence
if she could get them.
I’ll bet she’s the type that
secretly craves champagne while drafting shift rosters
and would go for remembered birthdays
and the smell of someone else’s cooking
if she could get them.
I’ll bet she’s the type that
secretly plans Pacific cruises to ideologically unsound ports
and would go for the ship
and the more sensitive members of the crew
if she could get them.
I’ll bet she’s the type that
secretly cries in all the parts old Hollywood intended
and would go for moustaches in white dinner jackets
(dying of unrequited love for torch singers with her looks)
if she could get them.
I’ll bet she’s the type that
could move brazenly to the tropics
to have leave without pain
and to find a warmer home for her secrets.
And she would get them.
An uncommon future
Since the elders told me I only remember myths
or dreams,
I'm not sure what past I share with you.
Often enough, until now,
I assumed a shared memory space,
a common time.
But if none of it was real
it means we can be anything,
now and in the future,
because the past is only what we make up
from hatred and desire.
The challenge now is to grab this thing,
this weightless freehold,
this rule change,
and enter this corridor of a thousand doors
and dare to knock on them all.
I want in my remaining years
to say the unsayable and deliver the unaddressed
and release the never-to-be,
before it can hide in safe corners,
waiting for something-to-turn-up.
Never again will I wrap my tiny fortune,
like a sixpence,
in the corner of my childhood hankie,
waiting for the tuck shop to open
and fulfil my desires.
For time is the only kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
And if we have no common past
we must have an uncommon future.
Doug Jacquier writes from the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. His work has been published in Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and India. He blogs at Six Crooked Highways and is the editor of the humor site “Witcraft”.
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