Hiding Place Poem by Jay Mandeville

Hiding Place

Rating: 5.0


Today, come with me,
and we'll stake our claim:
a hiding place
in a quaint, abandoned sawmill,
beside a solitary stream.

I should really first go fetch my maps,
fragrant charts on fresh-cut poplar.
Instead, I'll wander, create some suspense,
and the hiding place comes after,
written out for all of us,
in our final words and last laughter.

What've you and I learned by hiding?
Mawkish words, like excellent
clocks, sink the unfathomable.
Yet we go on having this conversation
(there is no mathematical certainty):
and yes, we wander and make
of disorder and fever
ingenious, congruent diaphany.
But...what of that?

First, we're finding a
protagonist for ourselves.
We are, simply, going on.
Stories, once buried, issue from our hands:
'Are the stars merely spare-change coffee,
and Heaven the tramp who never buys it? '
If it's time for harsh words,
we've heard them and survived it.

But...something...here in our lives together,
(it's probably just a delusive daydream...)
is shimmering, racing, spinning like a blade
in a ghostly machine.

It's probably just the
phantom of a lovestruck spruce,
protecting us from risk,
by plunging into the
sawblade's tooth,
before we initial that carved-on desk.

Or, no...if the truth be known -
it's probably just a covert World,
as fiercely alive as a revolving star,
and each hiding place
is nostalgia for this,
the secret machinery
of revealing who we are.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Stephen Katona 05 August 2014

Powerfully written. You've brought to life motives we all have for hiding at some time.

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Jay Mandeville

Jay Mandeville

Kansas City, Missouri USA
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