The last one

 

I see you fade away

One by one

Incrementally over time

 

Both out of the blue

And as predictable as rain on a

June Sunday morning

 

I keep looking for order

Patterns

Some underlying logic to hold onto it

While you all let it slip from contented fingers

Or lying hands

Or blind eyes

 

I don’t know

Maybe there’s a truth there

Perhaps you can now sleep through the night

And wake in the morning full of love

And wonder

 

So why do I not believe that

 

Jealousy

Confusion

But I’m the smart one

            (so you say)

 

The failure remains

Of circling around to the start

Looking for tomorrow’s answers

Rather than process the day

I am actually

In

 

The failure of easy escape

Of the release

And reset

And repeat

The familiar becomes like iron

Weighted and dull

An unseen crowd laughing in the darkness

 

Waiting to die cannot be the goal

Or perhaps too much truth is just uncomfortable

For most people

 

So I remain the last of the fools

Holding onto fire and grinning through the pain

Through the fact I know

The imbalance is the one thing keeping my legs under me

 

Keeping the wheels spinning

The brain firing

The foolish heart breaking

 

Every

Single

Day

 

It is a disappointment

A mockery

A bad joke

To be the last one standing

I thought they were all smarter than that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something is better than nothing

 

Past the half century

Holding home-made coffee and sandwiches for lunch

There was supposed to be more to life than this
And I suppose there is

Hiding in the cracks and dark corners
But my flashlight is out of batteries

My senses acknowledge the change in air pressure
Again

Again

Again

The coming season

Earlier and earlier each year
We shall reach a perpetual autumn in no time

The sun hanging there harmless
With no memory of the good it once did

And I am of late, no support
Vicious and uncertain
A stray dog trembling in the rain

I am no human being
Not today
Nor yesterday

And the smallest elements of ourselves
Lay in wait for one eye to close even momentarily
Before clawing their way to the surface

When the knife edge is old news
And the third eye remains closed
You burn your hand and

Slam your bones down onto cement
No regrets
Maybe
Maybe not

I am not predictable
Trustworthy
Or blessed with foresight

Maybe it’s time to stop all this
False honesty

Hold my breath
Learn how to ride a horse
Or become an assassin
Or play guitar

Something that actually
Matters.

 

 

Fighting

 

Soaking in hot salt water

Trying to rub some

Feeling

Back into my thighs

 

Thumbs digging in

Sliding into lines of old muscle

White steam absorbs the remaining smoke that

Moments before

Hung in front of my face

 

Burn scented wood

Fill room

Remember how to breathe

    Never works

 

This pretence

The mirror out of sight

Useless

I do not need it to know that the face

Looking back is the real me

 

Staring down pitying this figure

Slippery soaking in a tub too shallow

To even drown

 

    I picture myself as a fiction

    like a less fat Orson Welles

    Cigar in mouth

    Brandy to the side

    Only a few years left to go and resigned to

    That

 

Then the steam’s turn to clear

Just enough so the reflection appears

It seems nothing like the fat guy

Nor anything like myself

Traitor

 

All I thought to be real 

Now rinsing off my skin

And draining away

 

Close window

Inhale steam

Remember how to stay alive

    Never works.