LedgeLife, Like a Bitter Cup of Tea (Copyright 2008)

--Oh, that does take me back.  It’s like—
It’s like the first time you stand on that ledge,
Thinking you’re ready to plunge,
Or pull that cool blade across your throat,
Thinking, “Oh, for the strength, oh for the strength, Lord,”
To make that swift, clean cut, pass that holy threshold
That you dare not pass.
--But not this time.
Maybe tomorrow.
Your date with sweet Fate will just have to wait.  For now you’ll
     Catch your breath,
     Catch a movie,
     Catch some sun—
You take a walk,
See the world outside,
See the world inside,
Beginning to learn to keep them separate.
If you looked into a mirror you’d see a cold stare—
Your eyes are learning to hide flowing tides.

*

The weather here is always grim,
Yet here I’ve staked my claim.
For I’ve taken this path as far as I like,
But no other path seems appealing.
And what more can a man say?
Shall he echo others’ voices, and his own,
Looking ever into the mirror of time?
I’d thought I’d fade the rest of my days,
Plastered to a dead end wall.
But a soul, it seems, can fade much faster
Than the space of sixty years—
I feel I’ve already faded.
Maybe it’s more like a festering sore,
A soul that sits at a dead end door,
But does not enter.
Like an old, but worsening wound,
A bit of mold growing in a pond.
How fast can the spirit fester?
How long can a lost soul last?
Like a mold growing on a mold,
A madness on a madness on a madness—
There are three of me, now.
How bitter can a cup become?

*

I can hear Dawn, yawning on her first breath,
Sighing on her second.
She will spend the long day dying.

I can see, on all things,
A screen of pain, spread thickly.
So I sink into the sleep of sloth.

It’s as if some slimy film
Covers all my moves.  Heart is heavy.
Head is light and swift in flight to nowhere,

Turning circles ‘round itself.  The chemicals inside,
Never sitting calm, run against the skull wall,
Creep when I’m in bed, so sleep comes difficult.

And I wake to hear my Dawn again,
Yawning on her first breath.  Now she’ll sigh
And slide, another day’s decay.

I’m always sliding through beginnings.
I’m always sitting at dead ends, and never ending.
But in a minute I may stand and stare.

Well, when I want to be somewhere, I never want to go,
And when I want to go somewhere, there’s nowhere left to go,
So I sit and burn.

*

What is the toxicity of luxury?
--A mansion becomes a cozy trench.
The narcotic value of nostalgia?
--Fall into a lazy daze, forget to forge a future.
           --Freedom drives slaves.
What are the limits of boredom?

--Some dead ends have doors, open up to vacant rooms.
What do time and dreaming have in common?
--Both end.  Both come with the risk of dependency.
           --A bump in the road
     Becomes a mountain to be climbed.



*

When everything is good,
Nothing’s ever good enough.
When living is easy,
A lazy life becomes
A long campaign.
Happy endings lead
To long and undistinguished lives,
In anguish washing away,
Always waiting, only for the next tide.
Following a trail of bread crumbs,
The moral of the story can be lost along the way—
Reasons crumble.  Memories fade and change to suit
Whatever a festering sore prefers.
Would you dream a lofty daydream, always in a cloud,
But always the humblest, noblest, most loving of souls?—
Sometimes it takes a little pride to keep your head above water.
The noblest of intentions, too humbly neglected,
Have been allowed to rust.  The highest ideals have been swallowed up
By good deals.

*

There's a bliss to an unknown existence.
It's a cold city scene, a green garden,
A golden farm.
Let's lay down on the warm farm.
In the city scene, I eat my catch alone,
And watch the players pass, unwatched.
On the farm there are three of me,
Said the idle one.
It is what it is in the city,
Take a bullet, hold it in.
On the farm I smell a breeze, begin to feel--
This is not what I should be--
But I wouldn't be anything else.

*

I'm not sane.
Come back and knock again
When I have something clean to say.
Unclean.  Insane.
Uncooth.  Unclothed.
These walls are cold on the skin, and
Feel            good.
(Once the initial shock has passed.)
It's like an ever breaking pane of glass--
This brain of mine.
I never know just when the pain will settle in.
I have a quick mind--
But I have to do what Jack tells me to do, or--
Or the world
Will fall.

*

Cold quick nerves
In uncertain moments as a child,
Sticking in ambiguity,
'Till like a big hammer stroke
The embarrassing moments fell.
I stuck them in a river, letting years flow over them.
Now they're like worn pennies.  I have more money.
Their pain is almost forgotten.  I got newer woes.
I'm walking in an old pair of shoes
To where all debts may be paid or cancelled,
And every chance leads onto pleasant roads.

*

Spending my day in Milwaukee,
Fleeing an old friend--

Heading to the Qdoba by UWM
To waste my money on a meal I can make at home.
This was a charming part of my college fooling days.
The dollars flowed no more easily then than they do now,
But I do know better now.

Heading to a bookstore to pore over books
I no longer like.  They would have stirred my cup of tea
A couple years ago, when I could still be molded by what I called
"Good words."

Heading to Beans and Barley, just to be in a "healthy place."
(I came here once, after I'd left UWM
And did a little work for the mother of another, newer friend.)
I might be tempted, if I had unnecessary bread, but I don't, so it's
Just butter.

*

Some Stanzas

I kind of like my slumber
In varying shades of blue.
I always wonder and dream,
And never get up and do.
I played a game all last week--
I had to forget what was coming.
And all I wrote that week was a note
To my roommate, The tea pot shattered on the floor.
Beware of little pieces.

I like to spend my life
In a slow and quiet calm.
I may never even hear
The sirens before the storm.
But this calm is getting pretty long.
(And I don't care if you don't remember my song.)
Well I
     "Got your number"
But I
     "Don't give a damn,"
So don't you be waiting too long.

All you street crooks, I'm a creepy cop.
Tell me what to rip, and I'll tell you how to slip.
Some soup is pouring, if you want to take a sip--
And the sipping didn't stop
'Till he was dead.  I never said it was
     Safe.

Well, I walked to your funeral,
'Cause I like to walk in the rain,
But it got hot and sunny,
So the walk was all in vain.
I guess I'll pay you some honor, anyway.
--Poor man,
Now you're lying on a blank plane.
Or maybe you're in paradise, or maybe you're in pain.
Everyone plays with forever, until
Forever ends.  I can't send you amends.

*

“Some ants on parade” up my armchair,
To feast on the bread at my side, where once
I feasted--last night.  They are all God's critters,
And they don't bite--though they do tickle so, so--
I just brush them away as they come.
Crumbs under the cushion--they'll like that.
I'll have a farm by this time tomorrow.
I'm sticking a shirt between cushion and chair arm,
Hoping to block their advance up to me.  The shirt is littered with
Tuna fish leftovers and snotty nose blood, so its affects may be iffy.

*

The Pillow Balloon

All aboard the pillow balloon.
It’s the safer way to fly.
If you take that stimulant flight,
Rocket-propelling the mind,
You may spend half the time
Chasing pieces as they fall to the ground.
But the pillow balloon
Will slowly float you to the end.
No more foes lurking ‘round the bend.
And if you have some open wound,
In the memories of an empty heart,
A hollow soul can find a friend aboard
The pillow balloon.

*