Poem the Second

[fawkesyhawksie]

I should comment that these poems are not in the order that I wrote them.

I am a sculpture.
I am the sculptress.

I surround myself with chisel and hammer,
Instruments of creation,
Probing deep.

I chip at my mind, my heart;
I chip at my total self.
Shaping, changing, fixing.
Gentle or harsh,
Loved or hated,
I don’t know if I like the path--

Deeper and finer I go,
Not so deep but so fine.
Careful, careful, ever finer.
I can’t let it escape me

I cannot stop.
Details escape me and
I hunt them down savagely.
Chipping, chipping away at myself
I have to know what is there.

Finer, finer
I cannot go too deep.
I cannot break the vision.
I cannot break myself.
I cannot stop.

I cannot
stop
cannot
and I go too deep
too deep-

I don’t know what’s inside me
what is there
am I of water, rock, love, death
pyrite
gold
life or--

empty blackness

on my lids.

I try to fix it, but I cannot see
I don’t know what it is I’m filling
I don’t know how to stop it
I grasp stones, I try to put them back
put it all back
struggling-more--

I know what I must do, but I cannot.

I cannot remain,
but I cannot look.