The Pool and The Whirlpool

I can tell by what’s in the air

I’d best pay attention today.

 

I feel as if I am prey and hunter;

nothing new there.

 

Who has not felt that dichotomy,

that ambiguous feeling 

  

of when you carry yourself as

prey and hunter in stride?

 

I stretch like a bear waking,

sniff the air, remember where

 

I am, cast a suspicious eye

and ear to the four directions.

 

Make a sacrifice to time remembering

dreams and stories, finding 

 

words like sign that take me where

I’ve never been.  I have seen 

 

and heard and felt and know things

I cannot speak of and yet

 

the urge to speak troubles me – 

the healing water, the whirlpool

 

beside it, a foot touching each.

-Byron Hoot

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Freud on Freud

“Sigmund, when did you first know

you wanted to kill your father 

and take your mother as your lover?

Try hard to remember.”

I never did.  That story is based upon

a case of mistaken identity.

Oedipus never knew his father.

A prophet told a lie that became

true.  Laius and Jocasta believed

the prophecy and committed the most

hideous act of all knowingly.

“I see you don’t believe.”

That I want to kill my father?  Sleep

with my mother?  No, indeed.

“We don’t know what we want,

do we?”  

I’ve never heard you say you wanted

to kill father, sleep with mother.

It’s always someone else’s truth

you know better than they do.

“Excuse me,” he says, bends over 

the table, sits up, squeezes his nose,

runs a finger over his teeth.

“You need to understand the power

of the unconscious.”

Mine or yours?  Or don’t you have one?

“I’ve had enough.  I’m going to leave.”

Don’t say another word, you’ve said enough.

-Byron Hoot

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