My copy pen fell to the floor I bent down to pick it up
now I feel dizzy. I came to this country, decades ago
to write, many pens have fallen on the floor- although
I do not write with a pen but use a word processor.
A pen is a crutch and to make droll shapes on sheets
of paper; a thousands sheets filled with doodles while
waiting to write something sensible on the processor;
a mad publisher has shown interest in them.
Twenty years feels a very long time, twenty more and
I'll be ninety bet I will not be able to pick up a pen from
the floor then. Now I wake up in the night and a steady
hum tells me I have wasted my time scrawling, a book
of scribble how is that for an epitaph?
Forgiveness.
It was dawn in Calcutta; I had spent the night in
a bar with no name, when I came upon a hospital
in a side street, a place for the dying. Two nurses
in white uniforms with blue borders - they were
nuns- twins, poke marked, elderly, had prominent
noses and dark penetrating eyes. They led me to
a room were an ancient woman lie dying on a mat,
she smiled held out her hand and asked me what
had taken me so long? I told her of my endless
journeying, all the obstacles in my way and how
I regretted my lateness. She smiled glad that she
could see me a last time; then she died. Twilight,
long shadows a day was ending and I had been
forgiven for not knowing I was loved and missed.
Cabin Fever.
The firewood in the hearth hiss and smoke
refuse to burn bright, these limbs of a giant
will not heat my cabin this winter evening.
I must have done something wrong, don't
know what. I have doused the flaccid limbs
with alcohol, drank some too, now the fire
is burning bright with an inner ice blue tint.
From the floor looking up I see the roof is
on fire. Someone knocks on my door, I'm
a pirate burning my ship, there is rum for
everyone; for the dreary I've diet coke and
for the loony there is low fat yogurt.
