tryin’ to help

drunk guy on the bus

seat in front of me

middle of winter

windows all steamed

fella was fast asleep

when we stopped

he’d loll forward

bang his head on the screen

over the steps out

when we took off

he’d fall all the way back

& after a couple of stops

I thought I’d try to help

next time he fell back

I tied his hoody strings

to the chrome hand rail

which worked fine

for a couple of city stops

then he woke up strangled

the strings’s had got tighter

& discretion being better etc

I recognised this was my stop

time to get off

the problem

with looking like a thug

is

people (yeah hell is others)

expect thug life

thug behaviour

will twist & turn

anything

everything

action or words

to fit that perception

how’s your flowers mr’s c?

becomes

why are you asking?

do you want to steal them?

sell them?

do they contain drugs?

there is an expectation too

(not always unfounded)

of sarcasm

or snide

& when I do say something

unexpected

there is the sideways glance

oh I’d not thought this of you

while every morning

looking in the mirror

all I see

is the poet

beautiful

trying to be serene

death & daughters

these three generations I knew

the youngest is a singer

in a rock & roll band

lives over in L A

middle one I dated many years ago

we took a month together

to find out we were better friends

& the oldest is gone now

the grandmother

who used to feed me

this stick thin boy

dating her daughter

I knew him when he was thin

she told everybody

now that I’m full grown

& the girl I dated

too has gone on

tho’ I still talk to her sometimes

& the youngest

the singer now living in L A

asks me who I was to her mother

forgetting I knew her

all of her life

& the best I got

we were good friends

y’know?

cold

that girl came to me

had nowhere else to go

holding stories

of parents friends others

not caring & abuse

& I was no better

having lost my own way

sleeping mattress on the floor

empty fridge living poor

& if she had expectations

I knew what I was doing

could look after her

she found out over time

I really hadn’t a clue

was only trying to find

my own way through

the smoke the bottle

pills along the route

but that was enough for now

until better came along

& yes she took that

both hands

ran away from me too

to get back on track

there was talk of forgiveness

& I was saying

I can’t forgive if the person

keeps on doing the wrong thing

what I do is have compassion

they do the wrong thing

because they don’t know any better

so few of us

do the wrong thing

when the right thing is better

eh?

& its all ok to say

hate the sin

but love the sinner

if the sinner

is prepared

to get back on track

otherwise

you’re forgiving a lost cause

who very probably

does not give a shit about you

anyway

eh?

I paid all that out

expectations were made clear

I’d had my fun

now came the price

& I paid all that out

even if I was not all willing

but the thing everyone forgot

she had a price to pay too

but the way that got framed

there was only one to blame

& yes that was me

which got translated

I’d taken away her youth

those happy party years

where she might’ve hung loose

justifiably got so angry

at me my living life ways

no longer wanted me

in my nights to share my days

began cutting out seeking fun

& me? I was the guilty one

those made-up rules said

everything that happened

was down to me

stopping the pretty girl

being free

those years

dog chasing its own tail

is how I felt

those years

going through that door

sometimes having to knock

be let in

there had been something once

a poor boy might’ve called love

after everything else

was gone

been taken away

but I kept going hoping

one time might be enough

to rekindle

create a spark

light a fire be more

than what we had going

but no

comes a time

to save shoe leather

breath heart beats & time

call it a day

say enough

about you

if you really want to know how they feel

about you

watch what they do not what they say

I go to their house

they ask me to take my shoes off

at mine they leave theirs on despite the ask

here they look at the dust in corners

pass comments to each other with their eyes

looking at piles of books to be read

re read or read but not yet passed on

while they get their reading from the free papers

or watching news on the tv screen

because they think that is free

& lately their manners have turned poor

when they make statements about stuff

I ask them for source which for them

is enough to be there on the tv screen

I know we will not be friends for much longer

I don’t go through their doors much anymore

& soon they will stop coming to mine

will project out into the world: he’s such a bore

which is sad & a waste we could’ve been more

if they could’ve lived a little try to explore

not see the world only from their point of view

flowing out to sea

oh cry me a river!

got flung as she headed out the door

for the last time

she was being cruel to be cruel

as there had been last times before

later as I sat in the silence

I thought of her stream merging

into the other streams I had lost

in times past & continuing now

foaming to form the wide river of my history

of other streams that dried up disappeared

she would not ever know

I would mourn her in the years to come

as I had mourned those others

whose streams had crossed mine to go on

thinking of them here & there

the days falling dominoes

voices now under water repressed

with new lovers taking their place

who in turn became streams

forming the wide river

flowing out to sea

entropy is only a problem in a closed system

she knew what she was doing

when she’d come visit in a short skirt

hover real close until I’d fall under her spell

begin to reach for her pull her close

we’d end up in bed doing things

we both seemed to like

later she’d be gone leaving only

good memories smell of her perfume

we spoiled all of that moving in together

& the passion gets killed by routine

when you see the magic spell

being created in front of the mirror

the smells of another day after day

then you notice the slow changes

glacier shift in clothes attitudes habits

from sexy to comfortable lingerie lost left in drawers

she no longer hovers near enticing you in the afternoon

you’ve worn through all the great ideas of pleasure

& the man who told shouting out loud in the crowd

entropy is only a problem in a closed system

was a liar