Road to Now Here

The world and understanding it live poles apart, as do all of we
Fatigue hangs my head, drawn earthward by depression, despair
My eyes struggle to lift against the strain, find only conflict, greed
Madness then might be my problem, believing we may live in peace

Guns and drugs our cities fill, our prisons fill and the nightly news
Sweat-shop factories crash, exhausted, oil spills foul seas and lands
With childish brutality, violence, terror, war, we steal what we choose
So, am I the child who cannot understand these adult games or reasons

Changing seasons, moon phases, mark the calendar of my sojourn
I cannot live long enough, nor can anyone, no matter our time alive
Our tapestry’s thread to unweave to elemental patterns, not meaning
Screaming life, love, libertine joy may at least, at last yield satisfaction

Science hasn’t theorized or discovered a particle smaller than I feel
Despite theyears I have so far lived, I still have many likely years to go
Days I crawl through, over the shattered, jagged mirror shards of my life
A glass both dark and light, where I can’t find or invent reasons to excuse

An optimist born, my hopes and dreams finally worn thin and ragged
This needed change, the life steps required understood, but none listens
Can anyone convince everyone to stop, think, decide how we’ll begin again
Drinking might better use of my time remaining, savoring my tonic and gin

Bleeding bathtub oceans, I sail onward into the fearsome gaping maw
What value hoped for can I have envisioned this single life could accrue
When child is father to the man, what faint hope can I or any hold for life
Our childhood selves’ profligate existence heedless, soulless and extravagant

Can art, writing, music, philosophy mean anything to brutes and bullies
Non-violence has, at times, held sway on the strength of one personality
Yet movements, religion, revolution, cults soon sink beneath hierophants
Ignoring offered truth we do worship, gurus, prophets, cult leaders, priests

Look for me on your journey, as I wander blindly through desert heat
My eyes bleached white by the mirage of love, hope, and broken hearts
Tongue swollen on the alkali of lies and misplaced ambition, generosity
At the hoped-for oasis to find that I have traveled nowhere, done nothing

Then, more than ever, I will know that I must continue on my journey