SALISBURY PERSPECTIVES POEM 22

The night is thick with lies. There is nothing to be done, but to drink from the glass, and believe in what you believe.

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“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.” Sigmund Freud

Escape

I do not want your arms,

My cheeks unfaded are not tempting,

Believe me when I say,

I do not mean a word I utter.

Your glance no longer surveys,

Your lips no longer flutter,

What was an escape,

Is a communal ejection.

I do not fear rejection,

For we lost each other before,

As you glance was not for me,

But for a cheap sigh.

An empty glass lies,

The table stands erect,

The drink has been drunk,

And I simply forget.

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.” T.S. Eliot