driving the broken underground...

photo by Lee Winder ©

driving the broken underground

my humanity thirsts for the Sun

I haven't seen a bright smile

in myself for years now

I try hard not to seem

so sullen to you

as I pass you by

I fall on a daily basis

all for circuses and bread

I play the fool who ambles

carrying extra weight

to hide the hollow

and because food is

a slow comfortable death

I shuffle step down the street

squinting at a blue sky looking

for directions and clouds

to hide, wondering

if the world is still indifferent

wondering if this morning

will be the rise that I fit in

wondering if today will be the day

I find where my joyful reflection has gone

most things can endure

the cold dark womb of Winter

stealing into harbors

thieving fire to warm themselves

through to the other side of possibility

I am a depressed man

and I am that creature wading

into his own locked up forever

the way a taxidermist

waits to make us all stand

whether by crawling or

retreating further inside ourselves

until shadows and shells

are all that remain

spread out onto the sidewalks

mantles and shelves

in the torrid melt of snow

I used to speak

in a language of flowers

but those kinds of words

are thin at best

and mostly decorative and dry

crafted from the splatter marks

of what I thought art used to be

those kinds of words

I'd almost rather not write anymore

those kinds of words

I consider too bare

too raw and exposed

those kinds of words

don't exactly tell you

how lucky they are

that I still want to breathe

those kinds of words

I have already given

too much of myself

away in

EJR ©