Good Night

The mirror I have
  is never nice
 the pictures shown
(though seldom seen twice)
 never fade: I always see
     staring back
       the real me

The mirror I look to
  uses only truth
 I hide the facts
(though full of proof)
I try to run away from there
  from something
   that is everywhere

   the things I thought
   I'd never be
   confront my face
   they're inside me
   nowhere to hide, when from my mind
   no hole so deep
   I cannot find
   me cowering there
   from whom I've seen
   how old he is
   unjust and mean

   A face with
cracked and callous brow
   from hiding pain
  of others; how
    he lives with knowing;
   with all his faults
    showing
    puzzles even him.
 I hate him staring back
    and laughing so...
    so hard, so long
   "so what" he says
 I hate him knowing what's inside
    I hate knowing I can't hide.
       The hardest thing I see:
     the mirror
  for I know the one I hate the most
       is me, it's me

 If I should die before I wake
     you'll see him
   just the same as me.
     We are one mind
   though not one blood.
     One mind like taffy
      pulled between
ungrateful hands of greed


 If i should die before I wake
     break my mirror
      on my grave
   for truth is deadly
    when it can't save
   one from one's self

 If I should die before I wake
     don't pray for me
   but for yourselves:
alone, the single both of you


     Afraid to sleep
   I must beware
      one self might kill
    the other there,
     in darkness


       I hate it so
     it must hate me
      ...or, can it love
       so openly?
      Or can't it feel,
       could it be so cold
     not to care
     and leave me
   crying here with no more
   than my rightful due:
sitting in the hole I've dug


   If I should die before I wake
     don't cry for me
                 I drove the stake
   right through the good
         I used to feel
         right through a life
         that wasn't real

(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

Dichotomy

I am the other
However I find that
The other's not me
Which is interesting

And while the other
(That is, that which
is not me and
which I am)
Uses me much like a book
I use the other much like money

So I am it
While it's not me
I spend it while it studies me
And this raises thought

As if I'm in a box
And it's never there (for it's not me)
Except when I am it
Which is always

I guess that when I want it there
It's there
And when I don't it's not
But if I'm it
               it wants itself
I'm starting to get the picture

And as I struggle with self
As all selfs do
It feels it not yet still
                           fights back
Which I must feel
Even if I don't respond

Being divorce from me
It can be objective
While I, being of it,
Lay slave to the subjective

And in-between subject and object
A verb of dreams
Builds the framework
Of my dichotomy

(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

The Closet

In my closet are many things
A list of five-hundred forgotten kings
An old black book of unplayed songs
A list from God of rights and wrongs

In the closet an old pair of vampire fangs
In the back an unfinished picture hangs
Clothes obsolete and never worn
An old English paper crumpled and torn

On the left on the shelf a red shoe box
Inside a half dozen unpaired sox
Six baseball cards without the names
A rack with all our childhood games

Five posters that glow in fluorescent black light
Three feet of string and a tailless kite
A white telescope with a lens with a crack
An old locomotive and some dusty bent track

Behind an old traffic sign reading "merge"
Three roads to nowhere all converge
(And with my pencil, paper and mind
I can see though I am blind
Can sing and can whistle without using a note
Can travel the seas without raft or a boat
Can learn without ever a teacher near
Can get real drunk without any beer
Can feel though I am locked in a shell
Experience heaven, experience hell
Can run and can fall and without wings can fly
Without ever living can know how to die
With a few well placed phrases and maybe a rhyme
I can solve the world's problems, can travel through time
Never speaking a word I know how to converse
The meaning of life I can give in a verse)
I can travel these roads when I feel real blue
When there's nothing else left, they know what to do

In front of the sign an old sleeping bag lays
Now downstairs I hear that our stereo plays
Picking up all the things that I've strewn on the floor
I exit the closet, close behind me the door

(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

Haze Outside

Haze outside
     the picture falters.
 here between day and dark
 as night
       a sketch
             lacking color

   depth or
          feeling maybe

 fading...

       When dark the
 lights will form
an outline
        sharp.

  When now the
 shapes loose def-
 inition
       the city falters.

Haze outside

(c) 1986 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

After Roses

    The Rose
                  from thorn to petal
           shows,
                  that never was
                         there found
                                 a smile
                         without a tear.

And thus I know
                   that every face
                                  of joy
                                  has seen a time
                          of harder lines;
                          (about the eyes,
                                         the mouth;
                                 maybe in the brow)

                   {And yet
                    there never was a time
                                 at which
                          on looking at your face
                            I didn't see
                                    a smile}

      And    so    [a rose],
                   from bud to blossom
            grows,
                   without the need
                                 to separate
                          the tears and smiles.

      And yet
            there never was a time of years
                   (or space of miles)
             I could have placed
                 between two,
                    joined as such,
                        to satisfy a want
                              I knew
                                   to be too much.
 
                         a
                       petal
                      a thorn
                   and yet a rose
           and yet there never was a time
                      at which
                on looking at a face
                      I didn't
                    see a smile
                       a tear

---

(c) 1987 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

a rose

a

rose

a rose

and yet

a rose

and yet there never was a time

at which

on looking at a rose

I didn't

see a smile, a...

face

a face

and yet there never was a time

at which

on looking at your face

I didn't see a smile, a...

rose

---

(c) 1986, Norman Dziedzic

City Lights

   City lights
         from darkness
       show; in night
    to make me
             know
A man has walked before me.

      And wondering
         what will be known
             of me,
   I think -
             not the name.

        With no face,
                no words,
          one is left to
              make a stand
      upon ability alone;
         however grand or
       pathetically drone; to
              be exalted or
           thrown away with
               cares from
                yesterday.

          And coming to
         the break of day,
    I will walk before the sun
          that I may know
        I walk alone;
     And they may know
  A man has walked before them.

(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.