The hole

By this writing I am returned to re-plant the fallen flag
of ownership on the rim of this sinkhole,
whose 30-year-wide maw has swallowed
the shimmering dance floor of solid belief
and righteous purpose
that produced the catastrophist I’d become
(people ask: what happened? I say: evolution
and a lucky ladder.)

Even so, I gaze agog at the loss a god has cost me,
left with only cartoon rules (don't look, keep moving)
to explain the dance for so long on thin air.

You could say (and some do)
Down there in the detritus
are salvageable chunks of good deeds done,
prizes won, lives saved and blessed
and bits of my own blissful smile
as a happy thin-air dancer once.

Yes, and this explains my flag's collapses:
Good past footing is now soft ground.
There's more to weep for here than to own --
when foundations crumble the temple goes down
and a lifetime with it.

Calling it good doesn't make it real.
Every conned victim believes, for a time,
in value received from the predation;
every junkie's jiggered brain
runs movies indistinguishable from reality;
every drug is a prayer,
every prayer a drug.
Every delusion works
awhile.

No, not a conscious con man I,
who advertised to wonder-work,
no lie. Just an addict myself to the meme
that drove the dream,
a user of what I purveyed,
the comforted of the comfort I wrought.

And now, by this writing,
in a mood of fresh eviction,
a homeless, aging philosopher
once more tracing the wound of this wasted space,
still unowned, unnamed, unrequited,
staring again into the stolid face
of the faithless lover for whom I killed to keep
(spurned for cause, a failure deep),
I beg patience of friends old and new,
(the loyal, the weary, the few)
as I shoeless, flag in hand
dally in dark indulgence again.

Soon I'll depart for tomorrow,
shod in new taps
attempting a few good turns
before shuffling off the edge
of our common last time hole ahead.

If there's wisdom to snare
from this natural disaster I say:
do all you can do to remain sane
and whole,
follow no leader outside of your soul.

© Mario Tosto – All rights Reserved