My Obsessive Compulsions

 

Ah my sins, my singular poisons,
From which I have left lesions on fingers
From unchecked nights of cleaning;
From which came spectacles to see
When reading lists and strings of numbers
Had numbed and vanquished my orbs of sight;
I live by this well of affliction
And think I plumb the infinite
By tracing the grain of a wooden board.

It could be a planet of rich black praries,
From which imperfections are plucked;
Singular, smoothed, each detail
Each travesty upon the surface removed
Taking stones from the channels
Cleaning every angle and corner
Until the rough is gone
And the primal face,
The original state,
Is returned
What a strange set of drugs are these,
My obsessive compulsions,
My habit of scouring sink, shoe, and headphone
No lint in the pocket
No dust on the tables-
Smaller and smaller the perception goes
As though I would filter atoms
In my spare time.
And it becomes an hour
That hour, an existence,
A condition commonly dubbed madness,
But in the repetitions
In the counting and the cleaning
The slightest drops of reality
Become autonomous stars.
And in this theater imperceptible
I can play a god
As I would wish gods to be,
And banish imperfection
From my universe.

 

Written By: G. W. Devon Pack
Submitted: March 14, 2000

 

 

[Poetry Page]-[Front Page]