Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Corridors

Corridors are tunnels
That we build above the ground,
Between the present and the future,
The known and the unknown.
Corridors are rooms to which Time has been added:
They must be passed through, endured.
In dreams, we find ourselves inside them,
Panicked;
Running against the clock;
Trapped between the observable and the hidden;
Bewildered by constantly shifting connections,
While striving desperately to reach some crucial goal.
Time is always of the essence—
Time that lurks in corridors,
Clutching its silver baseball bat.

Awakened,
We have clocks to remind us
That we are late for something,
But not what we are late for.
The second hands move too fast for us;
The hours too slow.
The satanic, black minute hand is the worst,
With its tantalizing, almost perceptible movements,
Which seem to say that Time is barely out of our grasp,
Like water in a nightmare of thirst.
The brutal Time that persecutes us in our dreams
Is the deranged henchman
Of this dull time that regulates
The monotonous tick-tock of our days.

Yes, all clocks say only one thing:
“You are late!”
But there’s ultimately nothing to be late for,
Except the clock itself,
With its circular reasoning.
The Earth turns and makes its way around the Sun:
There is no late in Astronomy.
Clocks lie to us.
What tyrannizes us is not Nature’s time but civilization’s.

Another dream.
Now we are in a mineshaft—
A different kind of corridor.
We trudge into pitch black,
Toward gold, or disaster.
We see a light:
Is it daylight,
Or something massive hurtling toward us?
What we really want it to be is a lantern,
Swung by a friend.
Miners withstand corridors far worse than ours.
Why is it that they do not all go mad?
Camaraderie.
Brotherhood.
Fellowship.
Those who walk gentler corridors—
The air-conditioned, well-lit, antiseptic
Corridors of power—
Lose their minds quite often,
For want of the same.

Corridors are rooms
In Halloween dress up.
Are we going to let them frighten us,
Or are we going to party?

11 comments:

  1. We're going to party, of course! Let's rock!

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  2. party...for sure.

    The corridor image/symbol is the perfect anchor for this piece.

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  3. I like your tunnels and mineshafts. In dreams they would be frightening, I wonder if after reading this we'll remember to party instead? Maybe, our minds remember unusual things.

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  4. Tunnels, corridors, elevators and small airplanes leave me longing for space. Inner cities and "concrete canyons" suffocate me. I can never wait to get to the edge of the city, see open space, and feel as if I can breathe freely. Your poem was wonderfully challenging!

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  5. Clocks are the villains, they need to be outlawed. Perhaps Corridors as well.
    ..

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  6. 'Time is a man-made construct' – at least in terms of clock time. My nightmares never had me IN the mineshaft, but falling inexorably down towards it.

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  7. I choose party, knowing that there will be jump scares anyway down this corridor. But it doesn't do to dwell on them, not if the company is good and the music is right.

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  8. "Time that lurks in corridors,
    Clutching its silver baseball bat."

    Such an ominous image of time...

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  9. Corridor is a perfect use of liminal space, as the clock
    that tells of time, but what is time? Nothing. This is an
    outstanding piece of writing, Graham.

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  10. Liminal spaces .... I got stuck thinking about partying AND the corridors of my childhood, a small town elementary school, cloak rooms like walled corridors ... dim and party-like, we felt a little naughty, sneaking a hug or even a kiss. Sara is right, this is beautifully penned.

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  11. I felt a little claustrophobic reading this and was transported back to school. It also made me start thinking about "thresholds."

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