“Life in a Day” by David Kelly

David Kelly

LIFE IN A DAY

I’ve missed so many dawns and early mornings. There is such beauty and potential to admire in them, but we all make choices. It’s much easier to join in later when there’s more momentum to the day. Perhaps it’s laziness. I can think of numerous other ways to describe it, but perhaps it’s laziness. Come to think of it, I’ve missed a great many afternoons too. Working through lunchtime is another choice, but it denies a perspective on the passage of time. Immersion is more of a default setting than a strategy. Diving deep into work removes the extraneous noise of stray thoughts. Emerging from such episodes is confusing in the same way I imagine time travel would be. What happened ten minutes ago? Twenty? I should remember, shouldn’t I?

revised prognosis
none of us dying
to know

Stuck in the evening rush hour; almost going nowhere, but not quite. Retracing a familiar route time after time; adding occasional variations, as much to avoid boredom as anything else. What of these others around me, flooding the city’s arteries. This is not so much a salmon run, as a salmon slough, after spawning, when all energy has been spent and the vital urge to continue has dissipated.

evening fades to night
still powerless to change it
the wreck of mourning

from Rattle #55, Spring 2017
Tribute to Civil Servants

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__________

David Kelly: “Having tried to write poetry as (redacted), I (redacted) and concentrated on crosswords. (redacted) Passport Office (redacted) Official Secrets Act. In (redacted) after leaving the Passport Office, (redacted) encouraged me to join (redacted). I found it (redacted) to pick up (redacted) and would (expletive deleted) recommend poetry as (redacted).” (twitter)

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