linger in poetry

Your dreams will eventually be forgotten.
Your nightmares will eventually be forgotten.
You get to choose, though, which will linger.
The gods will not know you by your final draft,
rather by the pattern of your revisions,
what you add what you subtract is what you leave behind.
Behind and through.

You cannot destroy information,
you can only create more to cover it up.
Reality is a palimpsest,
that’s the big secret.
Memory itself is palimpsest,
fine parchment starched over for reuse but
eventually the past will scratch back through.
Thru.
Thru.

You’ll be judged by others for
your public heights and depths
but only you will know the struggle of
just living day to day as you.
Through. Through.

Life is mostly a struggle to not screw
up in a way other people can notice.
Other than that, it’s just
love all the way down.

There is no alpha there is no omega
there is only the holy act of process.
Without doggerel, no revelation.
Without revelation, no doggerel.
Wealth’s a crapshoot,
fame’s a bottomless pit,
the only reason to be in the arts is
they’re the only thing you’re any good at.
So here I am.
Doing this.
Hoping this is what will linger.
Myself and you.
Myself and you will linger.