The Journey

I
.
Run to the corner, turn. It
is totally within your power
to redefine the nature of motion.
Inside, worry, yearn to forever hide
from the past. Keep running as if 
from a crime. The destination
will always be a myth, a mystical
dreamscape. Set a tempo.
.
II
.
It keeps like time measured
in increments of light slipping
through space from one source 
to an unsuspecting earth. This
feels like air inhaled, like
breath released to wisp away
unusable.
.
Insistent voices crescendo,
most urgent to challenge you
from the potential of tumultuous
depths that make you want
to howl about needs to rise
and move. To be in full
health, pick up the pace. Keep
running. For show.
.
III
.
The action is the act where miles
pass beneath the heels leaving 
portions of the soul behind.
Here is where you travel in miles 
per idea, in connotations per hour.
.
The journey is a summons, and you 
turn dense every patch of growth
along each street passed. No one
notices you are writing down
addresses.
.
Pulses embrace and hold
you quiet. Maturation becomes
the definition of who you
were before you began. Time
is a closure that recognizes
enough radiance to tell you
it is permitted. Glow.
.
IV
.
Keep the heart pumping, keep
air’s rush gushing as though it
were time counted from here
to where remembrance will be all
and more. Scream the question at your 
muse as you careen off a threatening 
cloud: Was it worth the pain to flee?
.
Run faster between uncontrollable
tears days, between rain dropping.
Nothing is worth a stop. You
knew this at starting. Long ago.
.
V
.
Surrender no part of you,
keep your compass point
precise. Continue in any well
construed direction as if it
were a need.
.
Discover the song, hum the tune
while composing lyrics like a
poet on a dare.
.
Drift forward, take a necessary
breath. Evolve swiftly, farthest
from the definition of lingering. 
Do not fear sirens hailing you. 
Be prepared to know. 
.
VI
.
Tell yourself that there is no
out. Time’s passage was so long it
kept only bits of the earliest
memories.
.
Your sojourn was like a hobo
sack, shoulder-slung, that told you
to keep trying to catch a train
when there are no more trains.
.
What insists that you continue
roving around inside impossible
realms? What implores you to continue
to wander? Sacred enlightenment
is for prophets. Tilt your halo.
.
VII
.
How can anyone let so many
anomalies settle into blaring 
discord, making the touchable
comprehend the finest principles
of invisibility? Now, explain
how you keep the heart pounding
without a defibulator moment.
.
Your heart is your favorite part.
In the distance, inevitability
beckons. Truth keeps escaping as
you pass by in blur. It is better
to be an echo. Be the opposite
of slow.
.
VIII
.
If you push one solid footstep
after the next footfall, pulled
from nowhere dripping glory at all
points, then the world is working
the way the world should work.
.
Trails provide you with sufficient
love in the right measure to hold you
upright. Never worry in the hurry
to be the life lived without
the living. 
.
Dare fear to leave and in the void
suffuse the space with the exact words
that mean be here. Be here only.
Then go.
.
IX
.
Run deftly swift as if the world
is in flames. Exit along ledges
where you may not fall into cataclysm
from chaos to emerge half-souled.
.
Such heat keeps you wanting the journey
to go back to the beginning and forget
the ending’s inevitable halting. A
lifetime perpetuates the need to shove
away restraining hands, force away
comfortable embraces that want to hold
you. Keep challenging the stretch
of ground that leads to the waiting
future. Shrug out of distraction.
No debt to owe.
.
X
.
Keep it to yourself or tell only
those who are like you; travelers who
know that flight envies what you
have accomplished. The past will stay
behind you. Embrace the comforts
of this journey. Welcome distance.
Learn to grow.
.
XI
.
Adaptation was never your destination.
Listen to that lovely voice urging you
to tread faster than the changes altering
the landscape. Acknowledge nothing hard,
nothing thrust at you as if magically 
from nowhere’s center. You were born
to be someone else, somewhere else. No
pause is possible. Your journey will not
be denied. Glide. Be adrift. Flow.
 .
XII
.
Remember and keep secret the mental
map of the road that leads a course
around whirlwinds. This is not the time
for rapid eye-moving sleep. Accelerate
even though you want nothing more
than dreamless rest.
.
Encourage your inescapable need to find
the sign that reveals one perfect road.
Most freeways are rocky and pit
filled. Keep the pulsing heart bounding
from a long way from this moment
to a flag-waved win far away. Do not
wait for the question. Just say, “Oh?”
.
XIII
.
You find your life whipping by
at speeds no clock ever invented
can measure. Your fingers become
wind etched, your eyes explain
as you accelerate: You will never
be alone with a past you can
no longer hear in echo.
.
XIV
.
This path is not made of time spent
at rest, but in knowing what it means
to be steadfast when the course bends.
Choose to make the voyage to places
you could never imagine. On course,
pick up the pace. Ego in tow.
.
XV
.
Your heart is hidden, kept
buried in your past for no one 
to discover. Never stop is what
your heart is pleading. Who
can imagine images unfolding 
along paths winding from a
multi-layered past merging
into this moment? Keep it still, 
unfindable. Lamenting is for later. 
Let it depart so that you can
become the essence of no.
.
allets
09-22-18
1017a