Daily Archives: June 8, 2007

Fragment: Limo

Limo on the corner
and no one in back. Maybe
there are passengers coming out
of the grey house to get on board
amd go somewhere dreamy

but right now it’s just another car
with a tired driver at the wheel,
working a second job or even a third,
filling in for a drunk cousin
and hating the damn suit and tie.

Casino, strip club, romantic rendezvous for some
means hours of boredom and long chats
on the prepaid cell for another, smoking with another driver
just met as they cool their shiny heels
in the parking lot.

When the privacy screen goes up
and the folks in the back get down to
celebrating, he’ll be all alone up front
and that’s just fine with him: no need to watch
or share or even scold.

After hours
it’s curve upon straightaway as the big ride tools toward
the livery yard; then it’s the Toyota and a blunt
to crush the night into one more
bad tipped, red eyed check mark against the future.


I do not understand how, in spite of years of therapy, meds, and general self-awareness of my faults, foibles, and characteristics, I can still be such a jerk sometimes.

How does one break the habits of a lifetime? When do we truly understand what is habit, what is biology, what is culture and what is ingrained, and how do we ever learn to compensate for what we can and learn to live with what we can’t?

Everytime I get this way I look at myself and see a weak, weak man who has caused more damage to himself and others than can be stomached. I’m not a bad guy, I tell myself, and then I look into myself again and decide that I have no clue about whether I’m a bad guy or not.

People will say that we’re all a mix of things, and I know somehow that’s true; but in the daily course, things seem to play out more often one way or another.

There comes a point when one can no longer hide the fact of one’s own emotional and spiritual decrepitude; but what you do then, I think, is immaterial to the balance of your legacy. In other words, it’s all too little too late.


The truth is out there

but we’ll never know it.

Do we go on if we can’t know it? Or do we just sink into the daily swamp and let hope go?