Same Old Room – a poem by Tom Bauer

Same Old Room

There moves a strange aloneness to this place.
The room repeats itself, weaving in time,
the same each day, yet different, sliding by
the same dusty yellow factory curtain.
How can a formal essence beam the words?
Like the room, my brain repeats itself in time,
except when jolts of angst project my mind
beyond the corner mysteries of the space.
One time, when I was tangled in despair,
I found my shuttle digging clues within.
I’ve been looking for that hopeful state again,
the thoughts that once inspired a hopeful mind.
They come to me in moments like this one now,
the warp of each room flush with love somehow.

Tom Bauer always wanted to write poetry. In the late 1980s, he published his own chapbooks, which he sold door-to-door. Currently, he has work forthcoming in Blue Unicorn.