Are you lost? he asks.
I don’t know, I say. I think so.
What’s that bracelet around your ankle?
Oh that, it’s a monitoring device in case I get lost.
So are you?
I guess so. I was wandering like Wordsworth. Only he saw daffodils.
So what do you see?
I was just looking at the windy lake, how the waves arch like dolphins through the water and i thought of that song
What song?
The one that goes: ‘I wish I could swim like dolphins can swim’
You see that?
Yes, don’t you? Excuse me, that’s my phone ringing. I really have to take this. Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m coming right now. I have to go, I say.
So you’re okay then?
Yes, Someone’s waiting for me, waiting out the front.
That’s good. Anyone you know?
Yes, someone I know very well. But it’s okay.. He found me. We lose each other from time to time.
Pardon?
Soon as I get home, I’ll lock myself in. for the night. That’s when my mother used to wander too. It’s for my own good.
John Malone 
Brilliant 👍🖤
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thank you; I needed affirmation on this one; any post that plays with dissociation can easily go off the rails and lose readers 🙂
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You’re most welcome my friend.
To be fair it was the dissociation element I appreciated the most.
You nailed it 🖤🖤
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that’s so good to hear 🙂
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😊👍🖤
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This is beautiful. I have never dissociated so I didn’t pick it as that. But to me it felt like a conversation in a fog between a caring stranger and a beautiful dreamer. It feels mystical and dream like. It doesn’t feel unsafe.
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thanks; that’s a beautiful and novel way of seeing it 🙂
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I did wonder if the person who rang was another version of the dreamer.
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maybe it’s good that a certain uncertainty hangs over the piece; now that’s a good title for a poem/story: ‘A Certain Uncertainty’ 🙂
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🙂 it is! And I too have been working at letting go of the need for every reader to know exactly what I am talking about. I can think of at least three poems this year where I wrote them with a particular idea in mind and I can’t be sure anyone understood. Some are because I go too abstract. And others I just shrug and tell myself “it doesn’t matter. If readers get something from it, then we’re all happy” I heard Kazuo Ishiguro talking about this. He writes whole novels and people interpret them totally different ly to his intention. He said it feels like a failure but he is training himself to reject that sense
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going too abstract can be a problem but in the end it is important to write what is authentic to you; I was on the dge of ‘ditching’ this post because people might not get it but like you, I went with it knowing it would ‘speak’ to some in an idiosyncratic way; and as for Ishiguro one of my favourite novels is ‘The Remains of the day’ 🙂 not a bad film either 🙂
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Condemned to wander . . .
or else be kept from wandering.
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great lines, David: and very apt here; they ring a bell; Dylan?
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I must confess to a bit
of Dylan plagiarism 😎
Something about your poem
struck a chime in my brain🔔
“Even though a cloud’s white curtain
In a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist
Was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows
Fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift
Or else be kept from drifting.
Tolling for the searching ones,
On their speechless, seeking trail.
For the lonesome-hearted lovers
With too personal a tale.
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul Misplaced inside a jail.
An’ we gazed upon the
Chimes of freedom flashing.”
~ Bob Dylan
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ahhh ys; ‘Chimes of Freedom’; I only know the Byrds version but they were excellent interpreters of Dylan e,g ‘Lay Down Your Weary Tune’
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Some do say that Dylan’s words
are strictly for the Byrds 🦆🦩🐦
As for me, I promised that Mister
Tamborine Man to go wandering 😎
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Hi John, thoughtful piece.
I wonder about getting lost. As someone who is directionally challenged, getting lost is frequent for me in new places. I use it as a way to discover new things. 😉
eden
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I love that Eden; I just realized this is the second post I’ve put up this year about getting lost; bit of a worry — but not if I adopt your attitude 🙂
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It’s good to get lost a bit now and then, or even more often than that. It keeps things interesting.
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I love that attitude, Neil; thanks 🙂
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It meanders into quite the thought-provoking direction.
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meandering : it’s in my blood, Chel; what chance does a poor boy have ?
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Wandering lonely as a cloud. Draws me right in. You’ve created a great atmosphere and a casual nature that reminds me Fred Neil’s “Dolphins.” Your beautiful sea image so inviting. Oh, what lengths will we go to remain tethered?
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🙂 thanks Karen; don’t know Fred Neil’s ‘dolphins’: song? poem? painting?
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It’s a song. Let me know what you think, if you get around to listening to it. Were you alluding to a different tune in you post?
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Yes, David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’; it’s well worth a listen; it made number one in the UK; from the same album. I think, as ‘China Girl’ ; will check it out tonight for sure “)
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I loved the dialogue. It has a slightly sinister feel to it, although I didn’t get the disassociation until after I read the comments. Nice work John.
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This is excellent. I love the lost/wandering theme.
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thanks Bob; things came together well 🙂
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Love this John. Sent my vivid imagination in all kinds of direction. Love how you created a secure and hopeful feeling. Even if the last bit left me with a bit unease question marks.
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it is a little unsettling towards the end but a whole lot of history is in that little piece 🙂
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