March 30, 2016

the night had a reckoning feel






I had spent the night along the river 
after the benefit for a friend 
who died much too young 
I walked hours under 
the yellow sodium sorrow 
of the anti-crime street lights 
then camped out near these 
old coal chutes that used 
to feed the furnaces 
of this iron revolutionary place 
I could hear little laps and splashes 
of mighty tongued Hudson 
when the tides came in... 

do I know anything 
except that love 
at least in my hands 
rings hollow, especially 
when letting go of the life 
I've led here in the Ilium city...

will this be considered perhaps 
my greatest amounted nothing...maybe

my humanity can be had
at cost borrowing promise ever after 
find the shade merchants 
around the back of the barn
the rafters will be strung with 
the bones of those less fortunate than I 
to have never spied 
what falling completely once 
might have done to their 
perspective perisc-optic lives... 

I walk around corners now no eyes 
crawling faith's demise 
wearing powdered wigs inside 
a tea cup pony because this is my dream 
of need and repent...

I was born bent into America 
into a world that is an ever growing 
thirst with its blame policy mechanics 
of who and what side would 
thou be on if no winners were to be had 
at the end of this...

so I said to the cancer screen-ers 
no thank you I'd rather die here alone 
there is no home for the departed partitions 
and dropped ceiling tiles I've spent countless nights staring at 
pretending to count the holes therein...

who is a product of want whereas what 
only needs facts wrenched 
in written observations 
the anecdotes are
recorded as history 
and when they read my memoirs my words 
my poems I would hope some day they might say:

here was some one who cared 
about saving the world once 
then became irrevocably lost 
in his own land of disenchantment 
a broken man in mirrors and rusted toys 
bed springs and abandoned tires  
crumble piles of concrete and re-bar 
like little pill boxes to hide behind 
and shoot progress slipping back in...

need would never come looking for me I thought 
so I quickly covered myself in dust 
and disregard and blended in as best as I could 
a street urchin with lusty whispers 
meant to keep warm 
by any means necessary...


EJR ©

6 comments:

  1. did i already type in here somewhere that i freaking love Jitterbug Perfume? i'm not sure. sorry to put it in such an inappropriate space.

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    1. You did and are most welcome to mention anywhere you might want to...it is one of my favorite books...and as so much of it resonates with me, I like to hear references to its mythology whenever and wherever I can...grazie mille, uno che si muove anche le parole in modo così bello

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    1. the swine wine spilled down spines tines ready in unseen but steady hands hunger in the shadows weights the curtains pulled back...good comments

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