MY PAST CHANGES SO

by Chris Wayan, 1985, reworked 1998.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood"
or
How I climbed up from hell to happiness in seventeen stanzas.

CLING: to the rock of smile, and all the while deeper cracks the dome. DOUBT: dirt in the soup; cataract eye drift murky wrong. Blind hound hunts your eye. ALONE: surrounded by Recalled cold giants, Pain burn you dry. BITTER: mud remain, Salt the cut eye-- Stung, you'll see. ANGER: blood hiss faster, Hope a shore away but closer, vaster Even than their universal lie. FIGHT: the blare of rationalltheworld. Even in your heart-root, how foul the elders howl! LOSE: jungles of confuse, lime umbrellas hide guerrilla urges from: SCORN: napalming red from spin-steel crabs Smug in blue above. FEAR: only murk can save you now: the clear you sought is die.

SLOW: the horrorlakes of blood Mud the earth's so-silent mouth. Wet lips bend; the justice-whistle rise. HELP: as earth you fed, Underground surge up to you defend. HAWKS archaic-eyed may scream and reach to rend; Yet you don't end. BENT, my new eye faces in. Persecute me, can I? Oh yes still Neglect, belittle--but not quite kill. BUILD cathedral, trash on can: In the wilderness of brain, Slow those walls expand-- but jaunty stand! WIND huffed up the ediface Breeds white lenses where no cloud's been Since all began. RAINS on gargoyle spires Drain down the raw-reliefs. Scented petaled fires are sprouting: unbeliefs. WILD, your garden. Slow the dreams grow. I don't know about you, but My past changes--so.