The sad lost rundown engine
Turns, spinning us off into
An infinity of unknown confusion,
Our forlorn loneliness, just another
Tear, drop in the ocean, heart-string
Plucked, resonating the sound of our loss, deep
Down in the gut of our source, where
We all came from, first pushed, then pulled,
Grabbed, hung upside down for a moment,
That first screaming searing burning blindness,
The first coughing clutch of outside poison air,
The first disappointment, the first
In a line of continuing disappointments,
Our own failings and fate’s cruel tricks
Of giving us precisely what we ask for,
If only we remember those requests made, long
Before we had a clue what the outcome of our
Wishes could ever be, this we take
All in our stride, breath deep the air of
Regret, wonder where the time went
And pray that we don’t end up embittered
Like all the grumpy negative kind, so happy
To be miserable, reminded every day
By their own shit-tinted glasses
How nasty the world is, while
The rest of us carry on, making
The most out of what we have,
Breathlessy running from one extreme
To another, learning forever that karmafatelucksodslaw wins, every
Time picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves,
Off, heading out into the world
Bright eyed and bushy-tailed,
As if the next time the bruises will have healed first, instead of
Compounding rotten emotional fracture with fresh psychological bruising,
Able to get up and carry on, yet kicking ourselves
For being so foolish to think the next time
Will be any different, as if we have forgotten
That first screaming burning blinding breath
Of noise polluted air, poisoned by the very liquid life
That we grasp gasping to the very end,
None of us more terrified then I of dying
Reaching vainly for that last breath, sucking
Ineffectually at dying lungs, weak
From the effects of living, breathing
That polluted air –
When a moment strikes, a man on the train
The melodrama stops, inner voice momentarily stunned into silence,
Like breath held in aweshockwonder at dawn breaking silent
Over a desert mountaintop, this man, at first
Glance, nothing more than a ‘trainspotter’, someone
Lost between this time and tomorrow, mind’s
Eye fogged up with imagesemotions living memories
Taking up all of his mental and emotional
Space, clouding his eyes to what is,
Breath held as we watch him
Sift through a plastic bag of
Old letters, bills, paperwork,
Moving files from place to place, as if
It mattered where each sheet was, forgetting even
As he moves them, one envelope at a time
Why he bothers, perhaps peaking sanity
Up through the depths of fogged consciousness,
Eyes meeting other commuters, seeing enough
To survive, judging benign from dangerous,
Only survival level awareness left, this man
Who once clearly had a ‘life’, just as
You and I, now sits befuddled on a train,
Confused even by his own busy hands sifting
Through his own well-fingered materials,
How many times has he picked up this same envelope,
Looked at it bewildered, perhaps unsure of why he holds it still,
All of the previous memories of holding
This same letter perhaps giving him some anchor
In reality, a touchstone for the remainder
Of his sanity, as we know it, but
Still we stand, holding our breath, watching
The lost movements of a ‘broken’ humachine, lost
But still all there, as much us as we are him, and
We are reminded of the cruelist of life’s mean japes, that
Even the most astute, sharp, aware, in
Control amongst us can slip and fall, for
Something as simple as a misfired neuron, missed timing,
Misconnection primed, made and with repetitious visits,
Ironed into place, the frailty of the human mind,
Human kind only holding onto this ‘reality’ by a gossamer thread,
Waking up one bright loud screaming gasping nightday, working
Endlessly to reach ulterior goals, outside of
Who we are, forever reaching and striving
For the ever disappearing horizon, only
To end up dead, as we all will
Eventually. Until we see him,
Sitting on the train, alive and hearty,
Yet ‘not all there’, out of touch, and
We freeze, remembering how life can be the
Most fickle of bed partners, first searing pain,
Fear, screaming blindness,
Then life’s ups and downs, bumps
And grinds, all in hopes of something better,
Whether in this life, or the next depending on
Prevailing religious views, only to be
Stopped dead, as it were, in our tracks
By a single man, lost as a young child left
All alone by mistake,
Separated from parents
By cruel twist of fate, corner turned
Too fast, another wipeout in life’s 24 hour
Race, reminding us there is more
To life than striving, we live,
We die, we lose, and
We get lost,
This is our life.
This is our premise,
Life’s bitter sweet decline
It all ends in the same terminal
Way, why not enjoy what
We have, before it
Has all gone.
