Marooned Poem by Mark Pollins

Here I sit, wordless,
Marooned, forgotten.
I let my feelings float along with the music:
Oud & guitar.
Outside, on the other side of the window,
The rain is spitting onto the cold, forever wet tarmac.
According to the front page of the entertainment section of my weekend paper,
Everyone is smiling.

At work, how I yearn for silence.
To drown the idiocy of small talk, I turn the music up higher,
Thus assuring my head will ache, and no writing will be done.

I did not want it to get to this, but it has.
The pain,
I tell you there is so much pain inside,
All around, deep under, upside down, back to front,
Any angle you look.
It is intractable, it has gone wild.