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Mazes
by joyce via duclie - Jungle Drum Newswire Saturday, Jul 15 2017, 11:01pm
international / poetry / post

yanked from pure
freedom into the warm darkness
waiting as contractions
almost squeezed the new life
from me
until i emerged into another maze
different from the last
but with the same dreaded
puzzle i had failed to solve
previously
and so here we are
navigating uncharted waters again
searching for what, a way out?
so many shared this prison maze
which promised an escape

many fell from sheer exhaustion
others tried to cheat only to
be pushed back from the progress they had made,
maddening

but i had learned to deal with everything that
confronted me directly, running or avoiding
was counter-productive
so i tried to recall that vague memory
of my emergence as i knew it held the secret
of escape

i turned and turned into so any dead ends until
i found an uninhabited corner and just sat
to re-collect

whether from exhaustion or sheer exasperation
i fell quiet

images began to race across the screen of my mind
though i did not recall the experiences
they depicted -
i remained quiet until they began to slow

i could then begin to decipher
what they were trying to impart
i realised they all issued from various stages
of my development

i pushed on knowing that if i
could recollect that moment of my inception
the moment between potential and manifestation
i could solve the riddle of the maze

i pushed on until nothing appeared
though the nothing seemed pregnant with
the endlessness of all things yet to form

i fell again into another void or empty chamber rather
which slowly began to reinvigorate my depleted vitality
until i could feel it agitate my sacrum and collect in my solar plexus
until that hexagonal store began to overflow
vitality then began to ascend and descend of its own volition
i remained quiet and focused

a field appeared in a vision, teaming with everything imaginable,
mad beasts and dreadful delights all juxtaposed
creating confusion, what the hell?
as surely hell it was

undaunted i pushed on when something caught me attention
it was the smallest inhabitant of my vision
a tiny serpentine creature
standing erect on its tail on top of a forest fungus
i moved closer until i could see a human face where fangs
and beady eyes should have been

i moved closer until i could discern the features of the face,
which was strangely familiar -
the creature, aware that it had captured my attention
coiled and uncoiled on the mushroom
and then stood perfectly straight and disappeared
into a ball and then a speck of light
so tiny nevertheless a clear message
was transmitted, which i could not decipher immediately
so i remained seated and undisturbed
in the outer maze

before me appeared a huge mountain range
dwarfing anything on this planet
its peaks extended beyond the atmosphere
and its valleys seemed to plummet to the core
of existence

i approached the edge to get a better
perspective of its depth
until i reached the sheer and precarious edge

jump, a voice whispered from now-here
jump (again) but more insistent
but, but, but ... i would surely die
that is the point, jump and be assured
there is no death
did you not recognise the face
on the tiny serpent?
it was mine in a previous existence
it was me informing the new me
of a long forgotten secret,
this fuckin’ maze, is nothing sacred?

a corporeal maze including other incorporeal mazes
what chance did i have? the key of this prison seemed
too obscure to decode

but i was tired of the game so tired
i jumped without a thought
tho my stomach reached my throat
as i plummeted into the chasm

for a brief moment free fall felt like flying
and that sensation comforted me though i was acutely aware
i would die from the sudden stop

i fell for hours it seemed such was the measure of this range
until i could see the ground below, it seemed as soft as green moss,
tiny elf-like faces were smiling through the vegetation as i approached my end
at least they are satisfied i thought caring little for the outcome at this stage

at that moment of total abandonment i fell through into another sphere
which had no corporeality it was an ethereal plane, again i fell through
to another realm and another and another until i returned to my body
in the third dimension though that remained a maze

however, i now knew how i arrived and the many worlds
i had inhabited prior to this

all was contained in memory which was once locked closed
and inaccessible -- the door was opened
by the act of abandoning my ‘precious’ life
ha! creation plays a mean trick on itself

suddenly i began to lift/float
until i rose above the maze which from above
seemed to sprawl forever
yet i was free, the illogical freed me
why remain earthbound/captured when i was shown that
my essential self could fly?

http://jungledrum.hopto.org/news/story-2761.html

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