Fire Escapes

Poetry fails you.
A season of too much sameness
has left you flat, a creature more of habit
than enthusiasm, pushing through,
spitting your words out helter skelter,
lacking grace and light,
You have little to say. Waiting for inspiration.
You need roads, strange walls and windows,
new light, the roar and rustle of waves,
museums and mansions
and strange hotel rooms in new cities.

You have spent the year plunging your own depths
and there is little new there to discover.
You are thinner than you believed. Simpler.
Your needs for survival more than met,
you need new food. You need to get lost for a while
and find your way back, always looking for fire escapes,
not to flee, but to enter through windows like a thief,
somewhere, anywhere, new.

About this Poem

I don’t think, until the past couple of years, that I realized how much new places played in my life and creativity. And thus how much the lack of them has worn me down.

The picture was taken in New York City. Until all this I often found some business to do there a couple of times a year, and scheduled some extra time just to wander. I love the city, most any city actually. Not as a place to live but as a place to recharge.

I wonder sometimes, if I could live in the city. Moving to a new place late in my life. has taught me something I always I always believed: That I could probably live anywhere and still find places of peace. It’s something inside us. The landscape only contributes.

Tom