30 September 2003

A path deep in the forest leads no where.
It begins as one spot, tenaciously
winds through silent birch, shimmering white beneath
a harvest moon. It goes, but gets no where
until, after hills, swamps, it peters out
somewhere as no where as it all began.

No other road, path, or branch crosses it.
Few ever see its tumbled stones & few
care how steep cliffs & deep rivers mark it.
& how silent noontime feels beneath its eaves.
_______________________________________


All roads connect
(except the one you're on).

_______________________________________


Washed up at 29
he took the rain
& made it one w/ his heart

How often I've watched these clouds
move like stately ships
across the puny shores of me.



2 October 2003

Everything slowed down & the asphalt rose up taking him by the collar like his father used to do. & for one minute he felt safe, sheltered in memories of a time when he was safe, back before growing up & before the booze, too. Back before the same loving father asked him not to call anymore & his shy mother topped even her previous silence with death's absolute stillness. Back before things became complicated; back to when right & wrong were just words & one got you dessert while the other didn't.

If only it could go on like this, (on & on & on), he would be happy. But it didn't last, of course. It never did. Too many other memories intruded on this calm & he had nothing to fight them off with.

"Forget it, forget it," he chanted to himself. But still his daughter smiled & her eyes were full of trust. Her clear blue eyes looking at him, unstained by doubt, not knowing the strength of his weakness...

Reality broke into his trip down memory lane & he noticed the rain soaking him & felt gravel pressing into his cheek. He dragged himself up & moved into a doorway out of the rain & watched the city move. A tram rumbled by, a middle-aged woman in a pink rain coat passed without a second glance, without a first. He's as good as invisible. He might as well be running naked through a forest.

But somehow in not seeing him, the pink lady lessens her own reality. She becomes less than she was or could be. She cuts all extreme events from her life & becomes the fine pencil point that breaks if pressed too hard. Easier to write with, but somehow less...

When what you are breaks down, you'd better have another option to fall back on.
So he watches her pass by & she becomes a part of his day, a hazy shadow on his mind. He says:

"When the booze stops, visions start. I see those I've let down. So keep drinking, friend, & when the money's gone, beg, borrow, & steal your way to the next bottle.

"Now this is fine. Why not suicide? Why keep at it night & day? Why the struggles & guilt? If I had any decency, I'd be dead. That's for sure. No self-respect, either. So why keep it up? Grow all gray haired and bleary eyed?

"Habit, I suppose. Like a walk to no where that's a long way off. Just one foot in front of the other, over & over, until it seems like it's gotta be that way. So it's one bottle after another from groggy morning to senseless night.

"I don't add much to life, that's certain. But I didn't way back when, when I went to work every day. When I was a 'productive citizen'.

"Maybe I'm just this world's canvas. The background for all this to keep on going..."