a different place

a different place
a different space
in the timeline, i
slip and slide
forward and
get it out
in words,
looking in-
ward to ward
off the upwards
momentum of falling
toward outer space, of
falling off the planet but i
am in a different place, i
am a different man, i am
the same man in a different
spot of time so changed a
little but still the same man
at heart maybe
wiser hopefully
not as foolhardy
or hardly able to
see through the
haze of romance
and poetry to the
reality, the charles
dickens like hue of
life as damp and
dismal.

falling to a different place
on a daily basis as the
novel races through
my mind escaping
in my sleep, in
my dreams,
in my simple
and silly drawings
with pen and paper and
i miss my charcoal pencils
and i have a knit hat with no tag
made by someone who loves me
and it has special powers to take
the light away from my face i think
and i like to think, i like to think, i
really like to think.

i exist in a different place,
a different zip code to be
sure but a different place
entirely - deeper than that,
less obvious than that and
on top of this box once there
was a smile hiding and a game
waiting and a poem sliding out into
the sunlight as the plastic over the
windows dulled the outside world
for just a few hours.

i reside in a new place that's different a
little than the last place on the earth's moon
where i escaped from the harsh reality of the
modern world with vast amounts of knowledge
and information flowing to and fro, to and fro, and
even though i know it's beautiful in a way (like love),
it's a frightening concept for some of us humans.

in a different place
i can still taste the
way the air smelled
different and each new
day was a reason to wonder
and laugh and try to beat down the
next task on the list and the bliss that
could never last - that overwhelmind sense
of this is it, the peak, the top, there's no more
after this but going down then possibly back
up if you're lucky. the air up there was apparently
better for me and allowed more oxygen to get to
my brain as if as a poet i was meant to exist in the
deep dark void of space ... a different place.