After Thoughts
The Poetry of J. Hodges

The Complete Destruction of Everything Known

Reaching deep
into my incomplete self
recognizing the demons
that haunt and belay me
beyond my knowing or belief
betrayed by my measurement of self
and my ignorance of this world.

Deemed necessary for me
to cast judgement, all too easy, and convenient
to jest and parade my wonder for all to see.
No wonder. I am as I am and while I evolve into nothing
from where I came and where I began, I will return.

It’s these days, unsure and frightening
that I recede into my thoughts and my expectations.
No longer valid or realizable, I lament over a life spent in vain.

To have only helped myself, I have become a creature.
A creature traveling to nowhere, to a vast desert of vast waste
and vast desperation and loneliness.

To cry. Cry out. Fruitless, as I have dishonored you and my creator. No redemption as sentence is passed and the gates have closed.

Irredeemable, without hope, I trudge onto the end, which is unsure and terrifying.

Remorse, regret, confusion and unknowingness dog my steps.

Madness, my fate. Loneliness, my gate.

Should I meet a stranger and say, “how do you do?” and the stranger asks in kind. Should I believe that he is fine or troubled as I am? I just can’t say.

Without redemption, to die without exemption; an impossible thought for one such as I. So, I’ll decide that when the time is right, I will divorce the sorrows, the tomorrows, and take comfort that God will do with me as with everyone else; love and caress my weary soul.

-J