Your New Daily Grind
Easy is the release
of your ghosts
into the water.
The kicking for survival,
the breathing;
they are your labors.
They are your new daily grind.
They are your occupation now.
Your old job is
no longer your concern.
Your old job is
gone now that you’ve
spilled your tears,
like a savage,
upon the unforgiving veneer
of the conference room table
in front of your boss,
twenty years your junior.
Gone now that you’ve
said “pulmonary obstruction.”
Gasping for air
will not pay your bills,
but it is all you can do now.
Technicians have run
oxygen lines
along the length
of the walls in your home.
They left a canister on wheels
for you to get from one room
to the next without disrupting
the mass in your lung.
Gasping for air
cannot pay your bills,
cannot silence the ghosts
that you mistake for waves,
that you mistake for
the unending tide.
~ Steve Brightman
. . .
Old Pants
Is there really a difference in pants. When a winoe wears his pants too long and a someone just a bum just an old homeless one he has old pants out drying in the sun is there a difference in style the sun fades them both they both smell so very bad the rain falls on both of them the mice bite the edges and the bottoms if not rolled up get holes in them for sure they look like old man pants at best at worse his must be worse than mine mine could be worse if wine were now my beverage taken place of mind. They start okay they look real nice eye hate holes in mine high up where people notice them the one eye have is on the back of leg and lower then and nice. It looks almost like a little mouse was hungry and got him some denim some levi to eat and on the bottom in the rolled up portion where you can’t see them there is gnashes there is gnoshes there is tiny mouse bites where they nibbled and they roosted. Is there really and difference in them. Eye wear my pants a little different than a winoe does he does not hide his holes or care where they are from or going or near the opening in his pants is some eye cringe to see an old man winoe with holes in his pants so high up they can be seen by France and Belgium. My zipper works and seldom his will completely zip. Eye can wear my pants into the bathroom and do my business there he wears his pants behind the bus stopped and does his business in the street for anyone to see its gross to see that in a busy day time area. It’s not his fault they say he is drunk so what is my excuse for faded jeans with holes. Eye am sober but eye am poor eye am homeless with this caveat eye have no lardor no closet door to hang the pants upon the hooks to keep them there to keep them for the looks from others. My jeans are fine today and eye am sober in them pray for me and mine perhaps later eye will find the tape and fix the hole in mine or let it roll and let it ride my jeans is fine.
~ Charlax
. . .