Resurfacing Poetry

I was looking through some of my old writings today in search of something in particular, when I came upon this old piece. I wrote it sometime in the fall/winter of 2006/7. I think I like it again.

It's amazing the different opinions one can have about one's earlier work. Usually re-reading my stuff makes me cringe a bit. My writing is so often time/place-specific that re-reading a piece brings me back to where I was when I wrote it, which is often not a pleasant experience. But This poem is speaking to me in a different way today.

So here it is-

Feelings of weight and poise, simultaneously pulling and pressing the skin on my arms toward a place unknown; reaching for a glass that moves mid-blink and knowing I must reach all the same. Without cause or purpose, agenda off missing in action, sending its notes back anonymously. Following their backward prods with one eye on the door and one finger on the trigger. Maybe I could squeeze if I wanted to, but I'll never know because the sound of opportunity is always beyond the next door. Working and running through a world colored only in a heightened shade of gray, distinguishing a base immorality on the surface of every smile, never judging why. Waiting for the order to push through another window, to break another fist, always blaming the pain on that faceless voice, mind paralyzed by the thought that it might come from within. Name-dropping and show-stopping for all I'm worth, which, after the run, isn't much. The ruin and the rain and the sleet, all beating my head and my back.

But the word is yes, and I will try, and that is, in a word, all.