On Being Lost

On foot through a maze of my own  foreign making 

A maze from which there was apparently no escaping

I followed the constant errors of my ways to no end in Asia
But I really didn't walk through those distant streets
Within the morning glare and into the afternoon haze unshielded
I wandered them in a daze
Until there were no distant streets,
Only crossing thoughts inside a maze I'd already walked
That looked like the same traffic lights and cross walks
I'd seen countless times already, over and over
And the amorphous sense of my location
Surrounded by all the bewildering places there
And all the vague, unremembered people 
I was lost with inside a maze
Were just the starts and stops of traffic of thought in my mind 

So that all my efforts
To learn that the length of a thought
Is greater than the unknown distance from which it started
But shorter than the distance between two other vague, foreign thoughts
That came from nowhere concerning my location

Which was perhaps immensely close but impossible to find
Being nowhere
Yielded me nothing inside this maze of my own poetic making
Except the understanding that in a foreign land I was the only one foreign.

Lost in my mind.in a warren of alley ways

Everyone in the crowd lost in their Asian mind
But I was one more strange; an expatriate
Going down another long but tiny passage through a foreign thought, 
I was one with that ever thinking gaze 
Of a head sloped to the unknown pave

Come to a head in frustration and the wonder of doubt
Of being a lost foreigner 

Though I thought it was the right way to go
I never meant to end up here
Staring blindly into a dead alley

Like a knot

Had I known I would never have come this way.
I'd have never gone this far

I'd have never got lost
In China,Taiwan, or Korea so many times

Having to double back, but not sure of which direction

To double back to anymore, but doubling back
And doubling back again

Wasted steps and lots more sweat, so much time lost 
Going around 
In circles in this world
Lots more frustration in the humid alleyways

Drenched with sweat and light rain

With that ever thinking gaze of a head sloped to the pave 
Come to a head that drifted down these alley ways
And came at times to slowly, very slowly pause
At the very same place where once again
There was no cause, not one, at all
To be found within this labyrinth and all its errors
Just round and round and round and round, spiraling
In a sprawl of tangled thoughts like threads
Eddying round every little location
That were themselves a maze inside a maze…
To take a breath and a measure of how I was in this life,
Shake my head and move on
Wondering where I was and when
I was going to finally reach where I originally intended
The voice inside my head that kept telling me
Where to go.
And the yet the one who asked the questions
Who was actually the same as the one who wondered
That if there were ever a way out of here
Who would be the one to leave
If the one who wandered here, whoever he was, 
Never meant to come this way
Or go this far at all, not at all.
It was those voices I followed like a thread
Their words unraveling me
Forward in search of their source
For want of their clue the only course
But none to be found, just round and round and round
Bound tight inside a cryptic naught.
But, yes, even there was a thought;
One that told me
Yes, I would get out of here, I would find a way through this knot
And I eventually left Asia and I do not think I'm ever doubling back.