By J.J. Tindall
A Lake Michigan Of The Mind
“Way down, below the ocean, where I wanna be, she may be.” – “Atlantis,” Donovan
Unmoored,
Unmanned
But for your formless soul
Chugs the glass submarine
Swirling in circles to the east,
To the depths of sleep
Beneath the gilded surface
Of a warm, inland sea.
To the realm of dreams.
There, at the bottom of this
Lake Michigan of the mind,
An Atlantis of lost loves.
Never the found loves, the realized ones, but
Those most longed for and never achieved.
Aphrodite! At last!
(This is also a moment when you suspect
You are in fact fast asleep
In a conjured chimera.)
But there is a moment,
However long they may last in dreams,
In which exhilaration rings:
The first embrace, the humble blush,
The giddy wonder.
Sometimes Demeter, sometimes Athena,
But primarily the longshot Aphrodite;
The one you tried the hardest for,
The fulcrum of your most brilliant cunning
And the mother of your sharpest failure.
Mostly her
(When you finally Googled her that time
She had passed away some years ago,
Married, mother of two, in a lost
And distant neighborhood).
Yet deep under the warm, soothing sea
She returns to you and only to you.
Holding hands you begin to make plans
Then momentarily, inevitably,
You are washed ashore
To the night stand, the fan,
The water glass
And the Melatonin.
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J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood’s poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.
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More Tindall:
* Chicagoetry: The Book
* Ready To Rock: The Music
* The Viral Video: The Match Game Dance
Posted on May 15, 2019