Walking

Walking, walking, walking,
Through the city, so grey.

Walking, walking, walking,
Nobody’s Looking my way.

Walking, walking, walking,
Through the town at night.

Walking, walking, walking,
Hoping nobody wants a fight.

Walking, walking, walking,
Through the woods, so brown.

Walking, stopping, praying,
Nobody’s around.

Walking, walking, walking,
So peacefully in the rain.

Walking, splashing, living,
No heat, no worry, no pain.

The Moon

Enter the night!
Said the Lady of the Moon,
Her silky light shone down on me.
I looked up and she hid her sorrow,
But a tear fell to my feet.

Why do you cry, oh lady of the night?
I asked with my heart now heavy.
For my true love, I cannot see.”
And so I sung a song of her love.

She now sings the song I wrote,
But this makes me sad.
For she is the one I love.
And that fact, she will never know.

The Firefighter

Thirty-two years,
On the line,

Fighting Fires,
Yours and mine.

Braving death,
And killing smoke,

Through nooks and cranies,
I will poke.

I am proud,
Of my strife,

Waiting nervously,
To save a life.

The Old House

What was once a perfect rectangle was now a soggy rhombic shape.  The white paint over th lintel had faded and brown splinters stuch out of the wood.  The floor creaked under my weight as we walkthrough the crooked doorframe. The smell of the room eaked into my nostrils.  Rotten wood, mildew, and the rich smell of earth lay upon the air in layers that had been deposited year after year.  The house had been abandoned by someone from an older generation.  It sat surrounded in a grove of trees so long ago even the spirits that may have once haunted it had long been laid to rest.

Around my feet lay bits of wood and carpet.  A recliner sat in the corner that had been reapolstered by moss.  In my mind's eye I could see the man who once sat there with a cigarette or a pipe.  A grin raised the corner of his mouth as he read the paper.  The news was that the boys were kicking Nazi tail in Europe.  In my mind, he even looked a little like a cross between Roosevelt and Churchill except for his denim overalls.

To my left was another sagging doorway.  The ancient gas stove sat against the wall, The cast iron burners were well used and now rusted to the top.  "Now you're cookin' with gas" Bugs Bunny said in my mind.  The counters had been taken out at some point in time and a heavy ice box sat in the corner.  I could see a women with a glass of milk straight from the creamery via the milk man that morning in her hand.  Most signs of the times that have changed.

I dare not ascend the stairs but looking up I see rectagular sillouettes where pictures once hung.  My heart sank.  I would never know those people, nor their life.  I would never know what it was like to work with my hands to build a life of good times and bad.  I would never know what it was like to fight through anger and melancholy like people once did without the aid of medication.  I would not know what it was like to walk by faith without the nagging pressure to be tolerant and to throw away old values.  This too is a vain chasing after the wind though.  I will never know what it was like to lose a child to smallpox or to find out that he will spend his life with a body that was twisted by polio.

Life is hard for is all.  The old house beneath my feet is good.  As good as anything on Earth can be, but it is still rotten to the core.  My own house with it's modern conveniences and also it's sterility is not more or less evil.  It is simply difference.  The pain that I live through, the joys that I enjoy, they are truly not any different that what the people in this house lived through.  I play with the hand that I am dealt, and there is no way to cheat the dealer.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

The Old Rope

The rope is heavy and old. The strands are stiff and a little painful to grasp. This is rope that was made for leather gloves and calloused hands. It's as big around as two of my fingers and strong enough to be used for lifting a small car.

I think about the men who use rope like this on ships at sea, on farms, and at war. Rope like this is used to be close to blood.

I look down at my smooth chubby hands that have spent the years of my youth touching the smooth keyboards of computers and the controls of video games, and my stomach quivers. Manhood slipped past me, and now I wonder if there is any use in me at all. In the event that electronics and toys ever become useless, where will I be?

When I look at the empty space in the bed next to me, I don't have to wonder for long if it's because I traded manhood for a life of juvenile curiosity without the sacrifice callouses of hard work.

I won't blame anyone else for this.  It's just what I have to live with now.  It isn't pretty and it isn't something that can be fixed overnight, but I pray to God that one day I will find my real worth.