Clayton Medeiros's Shared Poems

I am not sure there is anything to be said,
Perhaps recollection loses salience on the page,
The letters, simply what they are, no mysteries
Hidden among diverse syllables and phrases.
A search for roots offers little enlightenment,
Subsequent ancient text translations are
Equally moribund, confuse the issue of
What can be said, what has been said.
Yet, words bind the moment’s emotion
In its full, ragged, rapturous sensibility,
An effort to assure a narrative
Otherwise forever lost,
Forever unsaid.

Is there an etiquette to memories,
Some required permission, for me
To be in yours and you in mine?
I would be pleased to introduce you
To my recollections, my fellow travelers,
Sensitive to time and landscape
With explanations of when and why
I invited you to this particular
Historical rendition, seen through
The lenses of years and years of
Nuanced dialogues to shape
Dissident decades’ influence
On my narrative truth.

There are those
Who only know
Love by heresay
Other’s looks
Other’s words
Insurmountable
Somehow distant
Insufficient
Little better
Than whispers
Little better
Than loneliness

A life of increments
Requires a leap,
Delirious
Unexpected
A tumble
Down a
Grassy
Hill side
Where
A shoe
Might
Be
Lost.

What marks one life’s border
Between one life and another?
Does a custom’s house
check shipments? Does an
Agent review passport stamps?
Does a ferryman collect coins?
Does a saint count good deeds?
Are evil deeds deducted,
In between banalities ignored.
Perhaps simple passages
Across a roundelay of lives,
Incarnated, one after the other,
A rationale for glimpses
We have of other times,
Of similarly unclear answers
About life, love, loneliness,
Heaven, hell, purgatory
Or, nothing whatsoever.