The

Doppelgänger’s

Defence

 

an illustrated sequence poem by

John Mingay

 

 

In your straining to give up,

you come to want to be

the Laughing Buddha;

 

your own laughter you hid

rather than have it shown to be

less than a drop of life in time.

 

 

You shake the sun

only to find it rattles

with something loose

within - a lack of intactness

that runs a charge of dread

down your spine towards

the hell so long avoided.

 

 

But, underneath, it is only a game

we are shown in all we have seen

of this world of ours, of this path

between always and never where

the living go on living all over again.

 

It is a square peg buried behind

the answer to questions blurred

by the flow of our being, all asking

in the same angst-ridden voice,

"Which words are masks to come?"

 

 

Everything will flow,

scrawled on a city wall:

 

somewhere, a prophet roams the streets

ahead of us, leaving clues for us to follow.

 

 

But, these words are our masks,

our smiling faces painted over

the wrinkles of a thousand worries,

our eyes speaking of having let go

while our brows, beneath the greasepaint,

remain furrowed by compassion.

 

These words say everything

necessary to say to see gone

the clouds on a sunny day,

the confusion of energy wasted

on raging against immovable rock,

on the fiery fury reluctant to fade.

 

 

Though what

of the moon

to the west -

half-full

as hopeful?

 

Fading.

 

And the seagulls

at one-thirty a.m.?

 

Screeching.

 

 

Then

the smallest of pieces of you

goes missing

and every second takes on

the life of a dog;

 

times seven,

times a million,

no-one’s really counting,

no-one’s really there;

 

just

ghosts.

 

 

Though, really, neither of us

ever could say we were living

if not with the mother of all creation

close at hand, ready to take us back.

 

And where we are now, as we walk

these dead-man’s streets, is not

to be excepted, not to be forgotten,

yet, so often, so difficult to clearly see.

 

 

It is our opposite, negative frame of mind

that burns with waiting for the past

to be no longer, as if somebody would

choose to stop the world to give us time

to be, rather than hang on to these lives

feeling for new directions over and over again.

 

 

While, even now,

out beyond the bricks,

deep along endless valleys,

I have seen the skies

scowl with intimidation

and heard the wind calm

to be an empty sound;

 

haunting:

 

I have felt the depth

of the sod beneath my feet,

squelching with the summer’s rain,

and have held the children

of this womb-like space

so as to share in their purity,

assimilate their simplicity;

 

if only temporarily.

 

 

And the gulls get later

as the nights go by,

screeching the obvious,

but overlooked,

I am worth nothing again…

 

I am tortured

by the unforseen challenge,

whether to brains or bones,

not knowing,

doubting my own ability

to stand my ground,

to defend my corner.

 

I am lost,

I am scared,

I am in hiding;

 

trembling.

 

 

Though, ultimately,

I know I will, as you already can,

come to find the faith to cross

each bridge as, and only when,

it appears along this wandering path:

 

free from the compulsion to foresee

its span and strength from afar;

 

at ease with each moment,

whatever the next may bring.

 

 

But, for now, on the outskirts

of where being is set to begin -

 

with the years spiralling

in an imposed timelessness

repression alone can comfort -

 

with the wisdom of knowing

each day, each hour, each minute,

as part of a lusciously delicate revelation -

 

with the clarity contradiction assumes

and the needlessness of ever wondering

beyond the present that surrounds you -

now, as this moment passes, laughing,

departing, you are armed with all this,

with all you could need for the journey,

while I, finally, recognise you as just

another me.

 

text & graphics © John Mingay 2001

A Raunchland Publication MMI

home