The Black Hole of Mind

2004SLAM:Topic: Write a lipogram poem* of at least six lines on missing things, absences, voids.

*A lipogram is a text which deliberately avoids using a chosen letter, or letters. My poem contains no u.

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Black Holes of Mind

Within the caverns of my mind
Lie memories I can well recall
Yet my brother says so often,
"I remember when we tried to . . ."
And sadly, I have to say,“I don’t.”

Where do those occasions go?
Why are my recollections not his?
How can the chambers of each brain
React to scenes in different voices
With different scripts, even voided plots?

“We play different songs,” I’ve heard it said,
Yet some of my melodies have escaped.
In fragments torn apart in the winds of time,
Those harmonies marched off to other choirs,
Leaving me a singer with no refrain.

“Alzheimers,” my brother likes to chant.
And then I remind him of the time when he . . .
“I don’t remember that,” he says,
His nose raises high in evident disdain,
And I smile for I remember that well.

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