against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the ******,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

Fear will always be there.
Following, tied to your ankles

In the brightest days one can see it so clearly,
In the darkest nights it becomes the hard air to breathe

Fear knocks on your door
The more locks you get, the louder it knocks

Fear sounds like birds chirping on a Saturday morning
The harder you try to sleep, the closer they seem

Only once one takes a breath of air,
Embraces the dark,
Opens the door,
And sings with the birds.

When they give in to their fears,
They will become free from them.

Sheets of linen, palls of grey
Old bathroom walled
Scrawled dismay

School of halls, rooms of beige
Sheets of linen, palls of grey

Old bathroom walled
Stalls, dismay.