Story around a fireplace
04/11 2023
Gather up and listen to my story,
I've only got one to tell.
Women and men pass around me,
As if I understand even one
Of the things that she told me,
Leaps and bounds above the sun
Look at the son passing back and forth.
"Not to worry", he says, "I ain't got none."
Many things make sense to me:
Why she moved her hands slightly ajar
At the ringing of a distant church bell,
Or why the whisky bottle starts to echo
From the drums thundering down the highway.
The scribbling of a futile world-weary hand
Telling the story of Orpheus returning from below
With nothing to show for it but a stubborn dream,
Which turns to shadow during the day,
And ash spread on virgin cheeks at sunset.
Don't challenge me, I have a sharpened nib,
Forged from the iron of a rusted plow
Somewhere Dustbowl way.
Don't fall asleep, I've still got the stand.
Besides, I don't believe your pain
Could be seen from so high above
The cell you keep him locked up to stay sane.
All the same story; purity and freedom,
Life and death contradictory only in name.
Funny how the streets seem so empty
Despite the naked women and men
Dancing the Charleston as they pass by.
I don't remember any of them;
The priest, I see his white tie,
Yet his face is shrouded behind the clouds;
The actress she turns, only colorless ideas
Of distant shores, distant in time.