POEM # 9916 OR SO IT GOES

NO COMPLAINTS

I have come

to land’s end,

never once curious

where the dragons be,

having passed off the map

inadvertently through their lairs

on my life long journey,

I’ve felt their fire

on my feet and skull cap

their wrath of scalding truth

upon my wandering mind.

This place

I have decided

is as good a place

as any to sit, to wait,

to no more query

that nothingness

now before me.

Turning a complete circle

I can see I am exactly in the spot

where all roads traveled

by all man lead to.

The place so many bleed for

and now

I grant myself

the perspective of time,

knowledge gained

in experience,

hated and sublime

as the omnipotent voice

directing me in my own ways.

I have the scars

to prove the pace of my journey,

the deliberate pace,

never too fast,

often too slow

but always arriving on time,

when counted in right.

I be no different

than any other man.

I see and am blind,

am blind and see.

The place I ended

was according to no plan

is as good as the one

I started when becoming a being.

I am tired of the fight,

fists have been broken enough

forgot how to fear react in flight.

I know there is more

I could of done

but that’s true for everyone.
I am not standing

on some longed for shore

or atop some mountain peak

those were all the metaphors

for all the waged wars

I’ve been through to get to

this place

I am trying to describe to you.

I never burned a village

or built one either

never pillaged another

or brought intentional harm

under the dark nights cover

though I think I may

have done some, some good;

I know it’s not for me to judge.

I simply trudged my way

to this place

called lands end,

found somewhere

here in space.

Every journey of man

is a private one,

every battle that matters,

the same. Few can walk

in another’s boots

or in their place

and understand

that for me,

for you,

for him,

for her

it’s not a race.

It’s simply arriving

at lands end,

which is where

one decides life is all

twists and bends

and that when

the time is now,

standing still

is the only place

where the straight

finally abounds

no matter the used up

lived in surround.

© M Durfee

4/9/16