A BLESSED SUN

too soon, the sun has set

and now i have to walk back.

back all the way to my books

the books which made me clever.

books which make me forget.

books which make me hunger,

for the thousand lovely deaths

they bestow kindly upon me.

and, bury my terrible fears.

too soon, i have to walk back

deep into those fears, with no one

whose hands, i’d kill, to hold for a long long time.

no one but my lovely mind,

and my thin, sighing body -

wrapped up so tight in layers

to cope with the cold spread out,

around me like something familiar -

as familiar as the tautness, that tears my heart apart.

cold that has never left my side,

nor my clammy hands and feet.

till there was no warmth left, none,

except, in my lovely mind.

and now,

that i’m walking back

to my songs, my words, my tv shows

i feel my eyelids close,

close down on the sun behind the houses

taut, and drinking in, that last ounce of sunlight

greedy, petulant, stubborn . . . resigned.

and i see the darkness close down

on a million lives inside the houses

births, deaths and struggles

paychecks, cuts and strikes

lost lunches, bags and smiles

all the things in my clever books,

my mind refuses to leave behind.

and the sun goes down again,

and i wish my mind would, too.

for it is so lonely a walk -

back and forth, and back again -

looking for a cold, so cold a sun

that comes up - only to haunt

day after day after dreary day...

but, refuses,

to light up

a million lives inside a million houses

lives bursting into awesome rages, bursting into haunting song

all locked up - inside the houses, tied

to their births, deaths and struggles

and their pay-checks, cuts and strikes

those lost lunches, bags and smiles -

all the ties, my clever books
tell me quietly, are hard, to undo.

yet, for these ties to be forever undone, 
i would give up the ten minutes, 
someone kind, 
put down against my name, long back:

my ten minutes, in a blessed sun.

* * *