Am I fundamentally the same I have been?
If this is the wind-down into the end,
What has remained, and what has been changed,
And what should be changed again?
Have I done all that I could do,
All that only I could do?
Or do I pass the flame, less my name,
Along to someone new?
Am I a pitcher pulled from mound,
Or did I make the final inning?
There are a thousand ways to stop a race,
But only one of them is winning.
I miss the night-summer air
Electric against my skin,
Breathing in, and then exhaled
With no pain in the taking
And mischief in the excess
Making a tapestry of mess
We weathered with our youth
Our bad decisions
Uncouth in our derision
Wild in our eager anticipation
Of whatever lay open
In our next breath.
I miss the world unroofed
And untamed
While I was still unchanged
By creature comforts.
Three years, she said, three years
And now I wait
For some intangible moment to pass
As though the hourglass of fate
Encased the same number of grains
For us all.
Three years of neither here, nor there
But always in between,
Time is a lucid dream, and I choose
To wander the halls of it,
To refuse to wake until I’m called
Into its heart.
Three by three, I’ve come
These eleven strides
And my pride is too strong
To stand aside, to let me dream
A brand new dream;
To let the old dream die.
Break, oh endless winter
Flaunting your precipitous splendor
Freezing the skeletal soul of man
Excessively boasting beyond your span
Bringing your brutal fist to ground
So ice and snow and sleet abound
You have tarried too long in this land,
And we are bowed low under your heavy hand
Watching our fleeing breath dissolve
As our prayers, the sticking point of our resolve,
Waiting still, for the thaw to save
While you turn our meadows into graves.
You’ve tucked your burning hands
Underneath my shoulder blades,
Inhaling fire in piercing waves
Exhaling when it fades,
And what is your name?
And where was your home
Before you made one
In the wheeze and the moan?
Are you growing, or going away,
With every pang I ignore,
Are your flaming hands holding me down,
Or are they pushing me forward?
I yield
This flesh that rips like paper,
And weeps at every fold,
Incapable of withstanding
The fire or the cold.
I relent
My stone fist,
Fossilizing life and days,
Poverty and wealth
And my every wicked display.
I kneel
On broken legs,
I offer the wrist to chain,
To live, to live a slave,
To die if You ordain.
I raise the white flag
Over my fortress You’ve laid siege;
I surrender all,
All my Lord, to thee.
Pain rouses me from slumber,
Keeps me awake to talk,
And I lumber into conversation,
Too tired to politely walk,
And if You want me to hear
I am glad for Your attention,
Only open my ears
If You mean my comprehension
But You alone are wise;
If need be
Open just my eyes.
Nothing to offer,
So little to give,
Overextended by every
Last day I have lived
And would you forgive me
If I sank in deep?
Latching on secure
Where there is no clasp,
Belittling the future
To exploit the past
And I cannot grasp the reason
I remain another season
I wait for a beacon to guide me.
Finite are the times
The carousel goes round
A painted horse is deaf and blind
It can neither hear the sounds,
Nor cast the vigilant eye
Along the sky, nor ground.
It cannot twirl forevermore,
Each ride has a start and stop.
Once you climb aboard,
And once you climb atop,
Ups and downs are sure,
And nary a rider may swap.
Night sweats, and in my dreams
All my friends turn out their lights,
“Forgive! Forgive!” I scream,
I beg the cold, the empty night.
Windows closed like pursed lips.
Doors locked like extended palms,
As always I slip, I slip, I slip
Into the black, the waiting calm
The air is cold against my skin
Where is the warmth of day?
But still you sleep, you slumber-
Awake now, while you still may.
viewingcamelot 