by Larry Brody
NOTE FROM LB
The following poem, which I just reread for the first time in almost as many years as I’d lived when I wrote it, surprises me. I don’t want to do spoilers (God forbid!), but when these words first came poring out of me I read them as meaning something completely different from what they mean to me now. Wondering – Who was I then? Who am I now?
A Will Of Its Own
Having read Don Quixote, and the works of Nietzsche,
And Sartre, having seen Long Day’s Journey Into Night,
And the paintings of Picasso and Miro,
I became convinced at eighteen that my
Purpose was the search. It wasn’t the
Discovery of life’s meaning that meant a
Damn thing, but rather the hunt. This was my
Credo, my beacon, my purpose, and for
Thirty years I kept it before my dimming eyes.
Sometimes I lost my way, and several times
My self, but the search continued
Regardless, as though with a will of
Its own.
A will of its own.
A will of its own.
Now Don Quixote has lost its power over me,
And Nietzsche and Sartre appear far away.
Eugene O’Neil’s dramatic voice seems both
Stilted and shrill, and I can’t separate the
Imitators from Picasso and Miro. Yet the search
Goes on, even without strong conviction, my
Will having become my
Must.
Few lessons are as painful as those that
Teach that freedom has been not true.
For years I roamed under the illusion
Of wanting, but with the desire gone still I have
The need.
Credo, beacon, and purpose have left me,
But the act continues, and my legs grow
As weak as my belief. The search
For something I no longer believe in
Continues, with
A will of its own.
A will of its own.
It continues with a will of its own.
Larry Brody is the head dood at TVWriter™. He is posting at least one poem a week here at TVWriter™ because, as the Navajo Dog herself once pointed out, “Art has to be free. If you create it for money, you lose your vision, and yourself.” She said it shorter, though, with just a snort.
