Name
Well, I was getting ready for a fight. I wrapped my hands with white cloth tape. In my small room I stood on a rug threadbare and torn and shadow boxed against a cracked dusty mirror. I bobbed and weaved, but the mirror saw me as something funny; see it was warped, just like me. No matter, empty punches came from my clenched hands. My rhythm was off, my timing slow in the stale apartment air. It was 3am, and I was getting ready for a fight. Somewhere I knew an opponent would be doing the same. I wondered if he was warped and scared like me, or if he knew my name.

Space

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready. How about you, Square Corner?"

The blog sat ponderously. He rubbed his yellow beard with small blue fonts as fingertips.

"Sure, I'm ready," he said. "Ready to take off like a rocket."

The first blog in space, I thought.

Absurd
I got a lip busted open. It's 3am and I just left the One Lucky. My wobbly knees gave way and I tripped over my two loose feet. Lucky I gotta handkerchief to hold up to my laughing, bloody face. I don't know what's so funny, this thing about tripping when I haven't even been drinking, except for a cold beer. Must be the tiredness that got to me, or the cold air, or my thoughts someplace else. Must be something that made me trip and start laughing on this Square Corner night. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Hope I don't need stitches, but even if I do, I'll let the doctor and nurse in on the joke. Then we can all ponder wobbly knees and the absurdity of it all.

Hurting
I lifted my eyes to look at the moon, but my neck hurt so bad I only saw the rising smoke of rooftop chimneys. I could see higher and higher, except these stiff muscles can only take me so far. Last night I fell in front of the One Lucky and busted open my lip. My neck felt fine, but it hurts now. I know I should be more cautious with my steps; it just seems so funny the craziness of it all. Besides, chimneys with rising smoke are nice to look at, if only for a hurting moment or two.

Again
Poison pores bleeding of my tattooed skin
Colours of time, like a melting sky with a red sunrise
It runs, these colours of time, they poison my inside
This tattoo evaporating in pale, earthly white
Disappears with my mortal name
To a heaven's rising, an awaiting
Like a grave needle in my skin
I pierce my soul and taste again

Soles
See, I'm this ramblin' pagan
I don't believe in no fancy God in a fancy leather book
See, I'm this ramblin' pagan
I pray to the road in wandering worn shoes
I don't talk no chapter and verse, sing no rising hymn
I just whistle to the open road, my face against a cool breeze
It's Fall a comin'
A season a changin',
But this ramblin' pagan prays when he's walkin' on leather soles

Return
I've felt deep shadows in the interior of my mind
Seen unclearly with darkness in my eyes
I've been weighed down by an angry heart as heavy as time
This is constant, these things, this foreboding of an unblessed soul
I know what is gone sometimes will never return
But sometimes it does, and sweeps this all away
So I wait with deep shadows for that sweeping day, if it comes before time

There
It was 3am with nothing to do. So I turned out of bed and played Indian music on old vinyl. Something I picked up at a yard sale. I ironed my clothes with a rusting iron that slid steamy and slow against a blue shirt I should have made into rags long ago.

I was at peace, the best I'd felt in months, but I became worried the music was too loud. I folded my clothes and put them away. It was now 4am with nothing to do. So I slept and dreamt of India and their fine cotton and wished I were there. Well dressed and alive, my old rags turning into ragas, my heart singing with something to do.