"New Blues" written and read by Ailbhe Pascal (2015)

I lost my journal.
It sounds petty, I know,
But I had finally described the coarse
Colors of the ocean and now
It's as if my eyes have been stripped from me.
I had drafted a love story I could read
In case my own fell through,
And dammit,
It fell hard.
I am not strong enough
To imagine another fiction.
I wrote my first love song
Between reeds and crowded caves;
The memory committed to page is
Forgetting what Free sounds like.
I wrote the name I adored in every way
I could recognize
With the only faith I've ever known,
And I can't convince myself I am better
Without those prayers.
I had measurements and deadlines;
Sketches and lyrics;
Things I needed,
Untidy, but
In some kind of visual unison.
My journal was my affirmation.

I'm afraid of life without its reference point.
Do I trust
Coal-powered tech hubs to do the remembering
For me?
Am I simply heartbroken?
With nothing better to do than blame
A hard-bound pack of pages for being
Too full of ink,
Too far away?
The confidence it gave me is
Fickle in hindsight.

This is loss.
Unforgettable loss.
The other mourning I do
Pines for words from a happier time
To make me feel less lonely.
What coarse color is this now?
Didn't I once know the sea?

I hold the lonely close
And look skyward for new blues.

New Blues

These recordings are everyday poems. Essays and conversations about just food//nourishment to come!