Lowly

A man in a black overcoat walks across the floor of a bar without a name. It is a quiet night, near closing time; just an old timer sits at table near the stale air of the men’s room. He mutters aimlessly to himself as he moves his hand slowly along a beer glass. He makes a fist and lets go with crooked, hurting fingers. The music had died an hour ago. The kitchen is silent.

The man in the overcoat stands across from the bartender. From his pocket he pulls four photographs and lays the black and white prints across the oak bar top.

He says: “They’re all gone.”

“Dead.” The bartender grunts.

“Yes. What can you do about it?”

 “Nothing. Ask God.”

The stranger lifts the photos and places them in his pocket. As he walks back across the floor he hears the old man stammer ”Nnn..othing ..Nothing. Nobody can do nothing.”

The man in the overcoat makes a fist in his pocket and opens his hand against the photos. Lately his fingers have been hurting. He wonders aloud if soon he will sit in a bar and curse his muttering God. The old man says nothing. The bartender whistles lowly.

Drift
I'm drifting, I'm drifting
As silence in a summer breeze
To hear the laughter of clapping leaves
I drift in silence
To the dying
I drift in silence
To the end of my mortal self
I drift in silence
Then I hear nothing
Do I return as the laughter in clapping leaves?

Return
The heart is my sullen beast that consumes me in sadness. But I will return. I will free myself of its grip and slay it. And speak of it no more as the beast slumbers in another man's soul.

Knee
I wave under a Scarlett Sky
Roll my tired shoulders,
Stretch my hurting arms,
Shake my weary fingers,
My bones, My aching bones
They want to go no more
Is that a wave of good-bye, for good?
To retire?
Give up the Ghost, so to speak?
I'll wake in the morning and talk to my bones
Perhaps we can accommodate one to the other
I'll move more slowly and carefully
Choose more wisely when and wear I go
But that Scarlett Sky belongs deep inside of me
See, even the heart has its bones to hold it in place
Just as they articulate the hurting knee

Place
She spoke of a different place. He kissed her sweetly. They were lovers once. She went away, he stayed behind. Years have passed and she still speaks of a different place.

Me
All my life I've wanted to fly and touch the sky. Just as I've wanted to swim to the bottom of the sea. Now comes the night with laughing blankets to cover me. Sleep slips past easily and free. Past the morning where wondering clouds wait for me.

Bed
There were voices that took me home. They picked me up when I had fallen...tongues as arms lifted my bruised and bloody self. Words of hate. Words of love. Words from those voices strong and merry took me round the reddening bend. Then the voices inside my hurting head screamed to drop me instead. But the good cords of love lifted me again like an outdoor song and carried me all the way to where I belong. To home where I slept in my own bed.

Distance
For everyone who has known a lonely city inside their dying heart, I speak to an echo and ask in rebel voice: Why to every life comes an early death? The answer came in wicked laugh and then died like what happens to me and you. I speak now to that lonely city and hear my words echoing in a distance.

Fred
There is a pattern to my steps.
Along these dark urban stairs I climb steeply to a park nearly in darkness. I arrive with my escaping breath. I rest. The pattern returns to my resuming steps. These deceiving eyes see dancers. Some say it is dangerous to walk this park at night. But I see not danger, but those deceiving  dancers in elegant dress. I'd dance too, but I am tone deaf and nearly blind. What a place to rest, I think. To close my olden eyes and twirl like Fred Astaire.