Run, Run, Run…

[Erthona]

Run, run, run
an autobiographical poem

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once."

—William Shakespeare
The Life and Death of Julies Caesar

You knew he was a courageous young man,
he wore a medal for bravery when they buried him.
For it is said, “To whom little is given, little demand!”
Ergo: Those of little live, while those of much die.
Littles* must live so they can live their insignificant lives.
While those of much, must of significant deaths…die.
Yet, significance dwells even in insignificance and all,
even those of less and little, one day to death must also fall.



I Was On The Bus…
—I was on the,
"You're either on the bus, or off the bus"
BUS!

Yet…, it is hard to keep spiritually focused when your mind
continually dissolves and runs like oil paint creating
multi-rivulet paths as it slides down the
glisteningly slick and overly-linseeded,
flat, very off-white mat canvas.

So I got off the Merry Prankster auto-fuss
as soon it was due to crash.
My noodle though often bruised,
I did not want completely bashed.
Afterwards, I ran into a lovely diversion:
she invited me to her wondrous home,
and smiling asked if in her feathered bed
I would care to bare it all and roam.

Ecstasy she was, but too single-minded
and would not take no for an answer:
simply refusing to be bluffed or rebuffed!
Still I resisted her insistent affirmations!
Things took a tumble and got a little rough
and in the confusion of this tussle,
I somehow went astray,
it seems my welcome had departied*
and that I had over-stood my stay.
Somewhen* between what I thought
happened and what really did,
through an inept effort to find myself
I lost my way instead.

I must have stepped through a wrong turn
or maybe somewhere I simply tripped,
fell and hit my stupid head.
I guess maybe -- it must of happened -- when and while
I reflectively tried to shed some light
on the dark reassesses of what I had been told
were the darkest places in my unenlightened soul.
Using a black light I succeeded in only growing mold;
using a spotlight I succeeded in only growing old.
Then… and completely unbeknownst to me
I found too late that I had my soul, sold,
if I had not outright had it stole:
because for all of that I had not a penny in my pocket.
Neither did I an imprint of your captured image
have to put into my semi-golden base metal locket.

To my astonishment as I now recall
I have no memory of you at all, or
from whence you came,
or at what moment you did leave?
Though neither loss it seems,
gives me cause to grieve,
Although I fear my memory falters,
but it must not be blamed;
it is simply to dependent on
this untrustworthy brain.

So for most of my life
this was my thinking and on such thinking one cannot depend:
by going inward I thought, I was going on and forward
through the fog, as we were want to say back then.
It seems however, I succeeded only in going down
and now here I hang at the end of my rope, waking up
cold as usual on this hardened dew covered ground.
I thought I had some morals once or more upon a time,
but somewhere, somehow I lost them trying to survive.
Though I think, it is far better to have regrets and live,
than to be free of remorse with peace of mind, yet dead.
That is what I think–I think–but I have learned,
to my chagrin over time to mistrust anything
that comes from the thinking of my mind.
Though cowards may die many deaths,
each death taste as different as each cup of wine.
There is much variety of life in death
so of death in life I will not whine.

That raging mist that has never quite dispersed,
the words hanging there oft repeated, unrehearsed,
filled the air as you were always fighting here and there.
Laying about with your flaming sword of delusional ire,
ever burning an inextinguishable and angry fire
and while not fighting I was just as plainly dying there.
No mention ever of the other casualties of your war:
understanding not, or how and why it happened for.
Why what they cherished most was torn
from them in the dark lying of night
and by you born… away.
You know, as I, in no way was it ever their fight.
Still, you made sure that they paid the price!
Love is what you called it. I suppose you can
call it what you wish no matter how wrong,
as you say it is your right!
I sometimes wonder though if you were ever here
or if you were only a painful illusion
that somehow lacking substance
has left a throbbing contusion.
My eyes do not lie on the eve of your destruction.
I still see the wake trailing behind you in your
clumsy effort, of a very un-poetic deconstruction
waving your hands that way and this
a deaf conductor searching for the beat:
an insignificant act of hubris by a petty god.
Here once…now long gone.

Now here I am stripped of all defiance and defense,
a most un-nerving happenstance, while
tears leak out from my pregnant swollen eyes,
giving birth to a saline child:
one who would not be called over mild.
I did not know this happened if you never let tears cry.
Weeping, seeping out at the drop of a thought
and for the silliest and most senseless reasons.
Who was to know that unused they would pile up
then one day catch me all alone,
and unbidden come unctuously oozing forth
from these smooth and colorless crystal domes:
tepid water from this old and leaky wall of stone?

Why now? It is way past noon, almost twilight.
You can’t wish on the first star of evening
for more sunlight!
I wouldn’t mind that this day should end,
here alone, without a friend;
except there still seemed
so much more I wished to do.
Instead of just one day,
I think I could make better use of two.
Especially as I spent the first
learning all the things I shouldn’t.
Quite a pity really,
this setup seems more than silly.
Why is it that only with loss
does appreciation come?
Our dreams we lose in waking,
as night’s comfort with the rising of the sun.
Oh! What a joy to begin again, blissfully young
and on fresh strong untested legs to run, run, run…

erthona

*Yes all are spelled as I meant