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Echoes

by Richard Vince

Some days, I hear echoes of the lives
I’m not living, or catch still frames of them
Reflected in the eyes of strangers.

Here, all is quiet, as though the world outside
The tiny corner I inhabit only exists
When I imagine it; when it becomes
The semi fictitious backdrop against which
My alternative pasts were played.

There are parts of my mind I no longer
Use; like locked rooms, they languish
Full of stale air, and I have long since lost
The keys to their doors.

The space left is small, and so the echoes
Are more intense, reechoing, colliding
Until they become a single, unified cacophony
Of a million different places I could be.

This is the life I chose, and this is the me
I chose to be…and yet I seem
Doomed to carry the same sack of
Regret on my back as I make my
Weary way through the world.

The echoes are always there, but
Somehow the original sound can
Never be found. Some days
I drive myself half mad trying
In vain to distinguish it from
The mere reflections that surround me.

I will never know how possible those
Possibilities really were, so I do
My best to forget them and focus on
My reality. My eyes, it seems, are
Determined to look beyond the beauty
Surrounding me to the desolate wastes beyond.

03/24/2014

Posted on 04/23/2014
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by George Hoerner on 04/24/14 at 09:30 PM

There are many place "of desolation" around the world and even they can have a beauty of their own. "I seem Doomed to carry the same sack of Regret on my back as I make my Weary way through the world." and if that regret becomes too large you should pull up stakes and visit one or more of these places. I see it as very important that everyone see at least one of these places before, but then who am I to say.

Posted by Clara Mae Gregory on 04/25/14 at 12:38 PM

~~~~~A profound poem......very stellar~~~~~

Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 04/25/14 at 02:46 PM

I think the last stanza sums up the philosophy. Stark, realistic, but negative. Could be positive - its a choice.

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