LAMENTATIONS

by David Eide

The poet, pulled by tides of irreconcilable forces sighs, "ah forces that make me strong!"

One pulls toward the rational, guiding him down the street to his destination. And passing through him are the flash impression of objects that come from the rational. He fights, continually, the image of the bureaucrat that he feels creep over him as he calculates his day. At the same time he is capable of the deepest plunges imaginable. He is capable of travelling to areas that are verboten to the culture by the fact it must survive. And in the realms of irrational sentiency the poet experiences a kind of real ocean.

Does he have the courage to man the strife between the realms? He laughs at the thought and jots down a notation that passes through him on the wave of a sense of nothing. "I," he thinks, "who am walking on the periphery of the culture, am at the center of the culture and drive its spirit downward and upward at the point of high productivity."

The people discover he is a mere poet and surround him with grotesque reminders of their power. He watches closely to make sure gang members don't break from the crowd and go after him.

Stunned by their alienation and their insistence that he too, the poet, be alienated makes him realize that despite his good efforts he lives in a real world. He seeks out the company of women who give him moral support and they go to dinner at this favorite bistro where he can hear the conversations of the people around him.