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Keep going on (or don't),
All of us with stories of a trying past
When, wounded by our nightmares,
Just about frozen with indecision,
Confusion swelling, tumor-like,
In drink soaked minds,
We bellowed in the dirty streets,
The “sane” knowing to leave us alone,
Wanting no part of our piece of hell.
Keep going on (or don't)
After the divorces and lost bank accounts,
The kids we haven't seen in years,
The families that no longer exist for us,
Though we still get flashes from previous lives
Though we can be riveted on occasion
By quiet, green lawn suburban scenes.
Keep going on (or don't)
We tell each other in pep talks,
Wondering what we cling to in clean and sober days,
What to hold onto in a dry drunk's sickness,
In a clear-sighted vision of the deadening facts?
Keep going on (yes, you might as well accept it),
A familiar voice can make a difference,
A sympathetic ear, a knowing laugh
With no answers, of course, but a sad smile
Saying you're not the only one,
Something you'll take for the long night.
It was the details that caught up with him; they swarmed and he was soon incapacitated. He had no answer for the new day; the idea of a plan was a laugh. He went down under a creeping malignancy, feeling like Gulliver pinned by the Lilliputians. The clutter in his head had eventually immobilized him. The idea was to close his eyes on any and all suggestions, to breathe deeply and hope that the voices of all the experts (and there were many!) flew off like noisy crows. He'd already been torn into in diploma-filled offices, been summed up by astute practitioners, dismissed with the accepted line.
He wonders in what government office all his years have been filed.
He wonders if all those beautiful faces only appear in ads.
He wonders whether to believe any of what the hip dude on the street tells him.
Is the empire truly rotting from inside?
With a knowing snicker, the politician whispers in his ear and slips him a dollar for his vote. He'll raise a bottle to that go-getter. He'd raise a bottle to anybody if they could take a shovelful of these pressing details, this trivial yet undeniable information festering in that place he calls an existence. He takes a beating from the mundane. He did a quick shuffle and they laughed with appreciation. Without much effort on his part, he is credited with being a song and dance man, a veteran of many world-weary productions. He's done time for assault on public decency. You probably saw his whiskered chin smiling from the food line, bottle neck peeping from a tattered pocket. Or perhaps he was one of tired hundreds filing out of the mill after the shift, released into the same old, and allowed to take his fatigue home to nurse in privacy. He's been around, and around, and ... up and down. And so it goes with a wandering numbness; he's made something of a career of his peregrinations. You see scenes of the epic flashing in his eyes. Perhaps he'll even turn it into a dollar some day; he'll blossom into a talk show wit. He'll finally understand the value of solid entertainment.
For the moment, however, a steady diet of perhaps and maybe and what if has cancelled any ambition. He is plugged up with mental fragments. A tired smile for the absurdity of it all. He just about roars when he hears: buck up and put your best foot forward. He is, in the end, the snake-man slithering through the weeds, always on the lookout for cover, always aware of the lethal spade.
The place has been flattened, spiritually,
Laid out cold by some badass demon,
A commercial devil with a dollar pinned on it for a tail,
Straight-backed and nose in the air
It defies you to ignore the lure
Of surrounding yourself with, arming yourself with
The innumerable toys of today
The cheap frills and thrills of the moment
The same wherever you go
The same masks and phony smiles
The same unbeatable deals offered
The same lawyers who WILL get you your money
The same smug talk show hosts
Telling you what happened that day.
As if you didn't know
Coming from that minimum wage job
A forty-ounce held dearly underarm —
Fortification for the fortuneless.
To a place with a roof over it, or maybe not.
He could be one of the "homeless",
Though this is supposedly his home
This great democratic melting pot.
He thinks that something is being melted down
For one big homogenized stew.
Don't stand up or stand out.
Someone is watching you
And he ain't in the heavens.
Someone you might not see
Until he asks for your ID.
Is it a red, yellow or orange alert?
The threat is there, the Man will assert.
Indeed, the threat could be there
Always hovering in the air,
But he's going to the mall;
He doesn't care.
He's got cable to help him to bed,
With medicines for the many details in is head,
Those many little things that never cease,
Rest now, you soldier for Fortune,
Rest in peace.
Where you're going now, boy,
Up, down, east or west
Or even if it's for the best
You know damn well
It'll always be a test;
They'll always want you
To be like the rest.
That you always could see,
And a marker for long-gone dreams:
R.I.P.
M. lives in Rhode Island and is currently working on anovel started last winter, though he always has time for shorter things. He will probably take a road trip this summer, something that has become an annual traditon for him.