THE END OF URGENCY

THE END OF URGENCY

Time tests. There’s a bind in this strange exchange

Around hours. As one day indulges another, with a tired

Repeat of itself. All sense of urgency fails, as the corridor

Ahead appears endless, and our former footsteps,

In rushing to half open doors, provokes health.

Now, it seems I have become someone’s cat,

Close to the end of its movement, content to sit

Inside Summer, or whatever this is, eyes part closed.

While the rest of the world hurries on, or does

Whatever it feels it needs to do to stay current,

While I, Zen, yet zeroed lose first credit, then claim.

Nothing’s owed. And nothing returned. Even as I try

To make dents on space with this writing, but soon

Enough, air reorders like SFX in a film. Words wend

Their way, but what will they mend if you listen?

What is the urgency in you? Ambition, or cause?

What’s been killed? There is that special moment,

When you stretch, as you rise to seek your place

In the morning, that somehow extends the motion

Of your potential in air, aura cast. Reverberations

Occur, with shapes in light manifested, before

Muscles settle, and that music of change fails

To last. We maintain the same frequency,

As the bland broadcast continues, but perhaps,

Beyond meaning there will be grander borders

To cross; places where death yields no end,

And truly contains the soul’s music, and this slow

Preparation, this meditation in mind, and in muscle,

Too, masters loss. Or rather, mistresses change,

As time recognises it is female. Its cyclic span phantoms

Our scale as measured and marked out by man.

We have been chasing a line for too long, believing

In scant explanation. And yet that line has led nowhere;

A sad dilemma delivered that nobody quite understands.

And so that urgency we once felt must now be replaced

By a pacing, for if we are to construct a clear future,

Free from the mess and the mar that’s been made,

We will need a new understanding of time,

Separate to Hawking’s brief history of it, in which

Resolution is itself partly quantum, and happening

Now, all around us, as the walls reconstitute

The sad cage. Happiness hums and can be found

In the static. We must retune. That cat hears it.

In closing its eyes, its purr covers

The ultimate song of the saved.

David Erdos August 1st 2020

For more poems from David Erdos visit The Corona Diaries collection 

David Erdos is an actor, writer, director with over 300 professional credits. He is a published poet, playwright, essayist and illustrator. He has lectured on all disciplines in theatre and film for leading performing arts colleges, schools and universities around the world. His books include EASY VERSES FOR DIFFICULT TIMES, THE SCAR ON THE CLOUD, OIL ON SILVER, NEWS FROM MARS, CHANGING PLACES WITH LIGHT (penniless press) and BYZANTIUM with the photographer Max Reeves. He is a contributing editor for The International Times and maker of documentaries all over the world. David’s work has been acclaimed by many leading figures including Harold Pinter, Heathcote Williams, Alan Moore, Andrew Kotting, Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair in whose recent book THE LAST LONDON, David features. He can be reached at David.erdos@sky.com.

David Erdos

©    David Erdos has asserted his moral rights as author of his work and has full copyright.