The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have. (Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination.)

~
what was the thing
we thought
we had had

a comfortable passing

the aura of air

someone’s on trial
the judges are there

eludible faces
traces a past

the laughter
once heard

from the questions
once asked.

….
hold down the moment
the moment unlasting

a freedom is leaving
and goes unobserved

few are the number
the rest not deserved

for what is the thing
which no one has heard

a transient passing
fugaciously lasting

when no one
is looking
then none
shall discern

a something becoming
of no one’s concern

nothing’s distinguished
when nothing’s extinguished

….
what makes
of the memory
the intangible stuff

the impalpable being
enduring enough

a medium made
the ephemeral touch

the surface
on purpose
the inside
a stretch

too much is thus made
of ephemeral guff

….
who is to say
we got
what we got

who is to say
we’ve not

such is the stuff
enduring enough

the intangible transience
the real and the not
~

©2016 Marvin Loyd Welborn
20 October 2016
Revised 07Dec16.
Poem’s Score: 3.3