Far Man

Sitting in the train, watching airplanes disappear.

Love is here, inside this moment. Holding on.

You will dance soon on Italian hills.

Wonder if French bread was only the dream of an Englishman.

In this prized center from the world’s desolation,

Byproduct of corruption it is haven from

Far from all the emptiness that crawls inside you like a secret poison.

For someday, you will lose your mind.

Holding a glass basket and admiring the grain of a tray

Watching distant smoke seep from shadowy pipes

“It can’t be smoke, dear. You think Uncle Sam doesn’t ride this train?”

You’d love to find a nice trailer and drive it across America.

Can you imagine what it’s like to work in this sweet little town?

Getting out of my one-story bed and locking eyes with you.

You are a flock of crows, cackling from a telephone wire.

I return your smile through the blinds with my missing teeth.

You are gone and I am still here.

Far windmills lurch forward like a cavalry of giants.

Seagulls examine you from the skies above.

Who do they report to in those clouds of theirs?

A bridge that bled my hands to build.

I had my mother’s fingerprints.

A sweet point like a dove’s face.

See there? That largest puddle in cement.

Hides the implacable dust and bone

Which are my father’s deathbed.

I see these things now and they mean nothing.

Soon this and all other things will mean nothing to you.

Because you can run and you can fight

But the emptiness will crawl inside of you like a secret poison.

Hidden behind those first ten trees

That you point out and yell “forest”

Are seven newborn rabbits.

Does that sound like the start of a nice story?

They are hairless and mother is gone.

There is assurance in the womb, then hunger and cold.

And pain and whining and terrible panic.

That is the last thing they feel.

Nobody in history has ever suffered more than those seven rabbits.

To never even know what comfort their lips were desperate for.

A life where you were never warm. Love as unachievable as language.

Not for one moment. Not for one second.

I see them every day.

You can, too, just outside your window.

Don’t worry, these rabbits do not have names.

The world is full like that. Dense with invisible agony.

You never know who or what

Is trapped inside a cage

And can never break free.

Looking at the algae in the pond

Imagine if it is suffering

Imagine what suffering is if you are just algae

Imagine that’s the only life you ever get to live

Is an algae afraid, in its own way?

If moss is afraid, should I be afraid to step on it?

I close the shutters

Grab the liquor

Turn on my computer

Look up all the reasons why I should be afraid

It doesn’t take very long for it to drag me under.

I don’t pick up the phone.

I don’t meet up with my son.

I can see reality and only I know what these problems are

Only I can see them

Only I can explain them

Pedophiles and cannibals

Secret revolutions

Different faces

Truth and lies and contradictions

My secret garden.

I will tend it.

I will fight for it.

Because the emptiness has crawled inside me like a secret poison.

It can happen to anyone. It happens to people close and far. Stupid and smart. Nobody is safe from themselves.

You laugh at me today, my future brethren, but one day you will fall at the end of your rope, and it will happen to you.