the Moon is Sliding

the moon is sliding down the street
and I sit quiet, mostly feeling absurd

I’m learning how to live my life again
I’m sad in a pleasant sort of way

I was driving home the other night
and under the overpass I saw the desolation
in this ragged land
I drove passed the smoked mullet shops
and the sea merchants union hall
I see the pretty girls with dirty faces
the tired old railcars, the graveyard of
military ships
the poor lonely homes with the melting souls
of the blue collar families
the crippled corners of those roads near the port
each morning a more magnificent vessel is parked next to me
it reaches to tell me, to show me
where I have landed
I see the shadows of smoke stacks
an industrial paradise in the corners of my eyes
squad cars regularly cruise by
each night I look into the Daddy Wabuxx bar
to see if it would be safe to venture in
I look down 7th Ave one night; I may just get lucky down there…
I watch the skyline everyday notice a new building…
I see that seedy laundry mat on 22nd and sit and silence working the radio
smoking cigarettes with hungry belly
the desolation is sweet
and during evenings agony whether it be drinking beer,
talking to some girl
or watching the low volume television
I look deep down into myself
to whisper: what are you doing now?
I see the wealth of life and all their believers
and ask myself: what do you believe in?
the façade is no longer that…
I can only speak honestly while I am silent
my whole mind is in a total cloud
a frozen painting of vision
alone in a fierce tunnel and oxygen is scarce

before I have complained of personal tension
before I have felt unlove & left behind
I have many times lived my dreams through others
I have before demanded compensation from my mind
by what my body disallows
once more, like leaving the back gate of my life…

I have searched the country roads, I have whispered my dreams
I have driven slowly everywhere
and have captured significant glory and said
Nothing of what changes it did not bring
and I think too; how many times I should have said
something or done something to keep love alive
I know I am the creator and the healer of many successes and failures
yet I want someone to come and save me
I want a complete and total love on my level of consistency
I want someone to come in and never leave
and be only for me
I’m sitting sober, sitting silent
no longer a surreal existentialist
no longer the noble romantic
no longer a restless heart of truth
no more sentimental about what left too soon
I may close off and sit in silence forever
I may just close them doors that seem open for other people’s selfish gains
I may quench what crimped desires still linger
and sit a shadow of the sun
in the corrupt gully of personal certitude
the motif meditation double parked abandon
the one lip above the glass of bourbon
the numb and the stern

sooner or later; it will be too late to turn it around
sooner or later; everything will be gone
and then I will be my own trap of my own game
the one and only battle given victory by forfeit

there are roads that no one can share
there are scenes and feelings unrelatable
and in them drunken fits; when I am ignored
it is the great weight of solitude meeting its fierce competitor:
the constant state of passing thru…

some pavilion in some cheek bruised stare
as tho’ hated by the masses’ thoughts
poking the ashes in somber sigh
the quiet starting thoughts peering out the window
and that thing in the chest & throat
when one asks, is this the beginning of the end?
I can walk no more to think about all of this
I can sit no more to think about all of this
it needs to swell up out of the ocean
it needs to fall from the sky
it must burst as a caress of tears
it must take away the shadow of the sun
and finally prove that there is nothing on the other side
that the finalization of the mystery is in the actual state

so if this is a significant time
let it choose an ending of peace.


December 2, 1992

from Shadows of the Sun or Young Man's Dreams © 1993 Private Stock Poetry
from of old men and of the sea © woundedlordliterature 2009

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