The Solace of my Cave
                         by
                  Lonnie Burr
            copyright July, 2011  

The sightless black of night time frightened me
as a child, like the lone hand creeping up
stairs to strangle my throat, silencing breath
forever, mom’s insidious choice for
my sixth year, hands bigger than buses
on screen but we all make mistakes don’t we,
so subtle and uncaring our loving.

I spurned my fear matriculating to
teen years of carousing, no veritas
in vino, coupling with feminine wiles,
games witty, arcane words, meaningless laughs
to make sense of desperate chaos and
quotidian maladies, defeats, death,
to which we are all vulnerable
for the curt, lost, spindly years allowed us.

Changing my circadian rhythm in
my thirties - Pavlov’s techniques sans bells – I
awakened early, seeking eyes open
to the light of day and losing the need for
puerile, post twilight quests, safe in my cave
long after reading of Plato’s and Kant’s
and Nietzsche’s, four ante meridiens. 

We men/boys and women/girls search long for
who we are, from whence we came, where is home,
our cave, all of us because, despondent
we grieve for the loss of self, our world driven
by camera myths, inhuman faux apps.

At light I slip from my troglodytic
solstice and quite alone sit outside with
my own coffee concoction, listening:
the fountain’s cascading sound, the morning
chirps of birds, view majestic Douglas Firs,
on choice the weight of books, words, peace on earth.

Just as I resist the suffocating
machine world of this new, dark century
I exclude the sightlessness of the night
and evil trying to clench my throat…
my soul.