Imposters

Ten summers, ten autumns, ten winters, and ten springs.

My life runs in cycles, odd to be sure, but cycles none the less.

Some are daily. Tiny little spirals so tightly wound that they resemble a thread of time weaving the days together. I come alive in the twilight. Late night is spent in waking dreams and long conversations with myself. Morning hopefully finds me sleeping, but as often as not, I am doing my penance to my debtors or fretting over something or other. Afternoon is a time of long waits. I am always waiting away the afternoon, looking forward to twilight’s return.

Some cycles are seasonal. Autumn has always been a time of rebirth for me. Winter a time of romance and dreams brought on by solitude.

My life seems to always come unwound in the spring and summer is spent whiling away the lazy days awaiting falls return.

Then there are the ten-year cycles. They are not so clearly defined. This book is a collection of poetry written during one of those ten-year cycles. It began in the Fall of 1988, with a knock at my door. It ended in the Spring of 1997, with the closing of another door.

As I look back from this vantage point at all of my impostures during that decade, I’ll be damned if I know anyone of them any better than I know the ones parading forth as I write this. But then, this isn’t a self-help book--it’s a book of poetry. Should you recognize anyone inside these pages it is because we are all impostures, pretending to be who we really are.

In the process of doing my homework I heard a voice in me. I wasn’t, and still am not, sure of its origin. I listened to it and wrote down the words. My teacher liked the poem and put it in a display case in the hallway. My mother was very proud.

The poem is long gone, along with every other poem that I wrote over the next fifteen years. All inside a gray suitcase I lost somewhere between here and there. But the voice never went away and I continue to write down the words. I don’t know how not to.

I would like to thank the people who encouraged me to continue writing. The problem is, there aren’t any. For some reason people are reticent to encourage other people to write poetry. Even my Grandmother, Alyce Marie Sparks, a published poet, did little rooting from the sidelines. I think she understood that you either write poetry or you don’t. Those who do are not in need of encouragement, and those who don’t cannot benefit from it.

Impostures is the third of four books of poetry cluttering various table tops and/or tucked away in this, that and the other drawer. A fifth is, of course, "in the works." To say more would be superfluous.