A Jolt Poem by Richard Blanch

It is slanting, slicing across experience
Like an sundown sunbeam, but less gentle,
This thing that has happened. Perspective
Cannot cope. It is a lesson, a book
Dropping in the mind like lead in the lap,
Making one leap with pain, exclaim with accents
Dire and feelings fiery, birthing something combustible,
Something questioning, loping after what could give
Answers. And never catching up, of course. Look,
Knowledge has vanished with a puff. It was a trap
Not a fortresss. But I miss its walls, its paths.
Now I am chasing phantoms across endlessness.
Or is that too to finish soon? Where is my clock, my map?