washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
  out again
  I write from the bed
  as I did last
  year.
  will see the doctor,
  Monday.
  "yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
  aches and my back
  hurts."
  "are you drinking?" he will ask.
  "are you getting your
exercise, your
  vitamins?"
  I think that I am just ill
  with life, the same stale yet
  fluctuating
  factors.
  even at the track
  I watch the horses run by
  and it seems
  meaningless.
  I leave early after buying tickets on the
  remaining races.
  "taking off?" asks the motel
  clerk.
  "yes, it's boring,"
  I tell him.
  "If you think it's boring
  out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
  back here."
  so here I am
  propped up against my pillows
  again
  just an old guy
  just an old writer
  with a yellow
  notebook.
  something is
  walking across the
  floor
  toward
  me.
  oh, it's just
  my cat
  this
  time.

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

"--you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create."
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

You only told me, at the tender age of three,
Just how beautiful this very life
Could be.
That as a young girl, a child let go,
I could run so freely, through
Fields of fruit trees, days of May
Owls howling, despite, such clear
Daylight.
Birds chirping, how they fight for
A place,
Among the cacophony of,
Sounds, dogs barking, cats purring,
A gentle breeze.
Spring is slowly, about to fall
Yellow daffodils, purple crocus,
Even a magnolia begins to find, flight.
The moles this garden so, loves
To hate, a little soft face, rising
From the ground, a cat
In sight, waiting for just one catch.
The days are longer, nights colder,
Stars protecting a moon that beams,
In such clear sight, a blackout in
The sky.
The sun sets, slowly and all at once,
The way I described how,
Depression felt, so slowly that
You don’t notice, and suddenly,
Like the shining sun, you are gone.
Squirrels play, Oak trees surround me,
as I ponder the age, and decades that
they have stood so firm, asking myself,
what secrets do they hold, who do they share
the tales of this Hamlet I call home, with.
Home, a place I could never,
Dismiss,
Without my heart, remaining
On the concrete slabs I walk,
Bare feet on grass, still carrying
Morning dew.
My soul a bird’s song, in love forever,
A practice of freedom, an entity oh
So rare, in a world so stripped,
Of the essentials of life.
Saving myself, from the roller coaster
Of life,
I am brought closer, to all the things,
That matter, as I continue to believe
We will be in love forever.
Clouds marry, then within a glance
Of an eye, fade, a puff of smoke,
Only blue skies, an orange tinted
Light.
Sins forgiven, seeking redemption,
****** sits,
In the dim sunshine, oh
Yes,
I know, we will be
In
Love forever.

© Sia Jane