BETRAYALS OF THE MIND MoSt 25

BETRAYALS OF THE MIND

Betrayals of the mind begin innocuously enough,
small warning signs, you pay no heed to,
they’re merely trifles, but they steadily accumulate
until one day you’re on the wrong side of a locked gate,
you misplaced the key long ago, and there’s no spare
to be found anywhere. Not for love, nor money,
nor wishes made of horsehair and remembrance.
Just an attic filled with dying stars,
and an insurmountable debt, that cannot be repaid,
the ritual of hope long since misplaced.

1/18/20
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center New Year’s challenge Prompt #25 (for January 8th, 2020)
As I write this, 2020 seems to be getting off to a dark start in many places on our planet. As an antidote or opposite to that, write a poem of the human need for connection, awareness, and/or light. Do not use those words in your poem.
This prompt got started when 2019 wasn’t done with itself, after I reread a favorite poem by William Stafford. Perhaps you’ll find something here to accompany your poem on its journey.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford