Groundhog Day

Francis Rosenfeld
Collected Poems by Francis Rosenfeld
2 min readJul 26, 2022

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I hide my pain, I ride the rain, I exercise my life in vain.

I see the shame, I fight the wane, I cry out from the tortured strain.

My light is tamed, my soul is stained, the gladness in my heart is chained.

My love is maimed, my self is slain.

I’ll fight till my last breath is drained.

Photo by Michael Alfonso at Unsplash

No secret gain, no shelter claimed, no friends to protest when I’m blamed, no loss sustained, no stress to tame, no end to memories that remain.

No fear to feign, no lies to deign, with rocks my hurt is underlain.

By truth sustained my hope remains.

I’ll fight till my last breath is drained.

It’s been the same exhausting strain from the first quickening of my name: the false refrain, the loser game, the crippled logic of the cane, the crooked lane, the warping frame, the poison running through the veins, the useless pain, the hopeless bane.

I’ll fight till my last breath is drained.

It was ordained that I restrain the pounding headache in my brain, the anger grain, the sadness strain, the cynicism of disdain, frustrated fain, recurring sprain, the dulling irk of the mundane, the thought profane, the shameful gain.

I’ll fight till my last breath is drained.

In octave frames my life’s contained, they’re hollowed out at the refrain, then filled with plain refreshed domain and new instructions to explain.

In constant twain I thread my name, untangled from the knotted skein, and until my last breath is drained, I’ll always look through the same pain.

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