New Compass

Long shadows weight my shadow-boxing heart.
These mind-forged manacles are all too real.
My body is scarred by its psychic part.
My life contains constraints I make and feel.

These mind-forged manacles are all too real.
How can a galley slave plot a new course?
My life contains constraints I make and feel.
What if good changes tip things, make them worse?

How can a galley slave plot a new course?
I sing of future freedom until I’m hoarse.
What if good changes tip things, make them worse?
Yet still, today, my song lifts my long curse.

I sing of future freedom until I’m hoarse.
My body is scarred by its psychic part,
Yet still, today, my song lifts my long curse,
While shadows weight my shadow-boxing heart.

Leslie Schultz

This “bonus” poem for April 9 sprang from a long-standing echo from William’s Blake’s famous poem, “London,”  written in 1792 and published in his 1794 collection Songs of Experience. Since I first read it, decades ago, I have never stopped thinking about his inspired phrase “mind-forged manacles.” Where Blake looked outward, in this poem I turned the telescope around.

Wishing you a great start to the week! Leslie

Check out other participants in the NaPoWriMo Challenge!