After searching long and hard, I conclude -
I have no Riverman, whispering words
of encouragement or fear; desperation or love.

- I saw it all, as he sailed on past
to a place more deserving of his light
and his calm and his body and his inspiration.
- Where tortured souls have name badges
and hurl themselves at the parade
of tin whistles and banging drums.
- Where they pillage there own friends
looking for alien sensations
and fireworks for fallen foes
who raised difficult questions
and dressed as though they were homeless.
- Where they took liberties with there flesh
and connected with ease to some
higher hive mind of complicity
known only to people like me as unease.
- Where they raised their voices and shrieked
driving off the demented spirits
that threaten something-or-other
depletion this-and-that
this culture is going mad.
- Where they darkened the doors of therapists
in total disrespect
to their immaculate sanity
and abundance of hopes and dreams.
- Where tortured souls strip naked to cover their disgrace
and modesty is a sin and speaks
of mental fragility and weakness.
- I saw it all, as he sailed on past
I wept, not for the first time
and for once, it was not beautiful.

- They smile, which in itself isn't a crime
but can be a surprising, dividing line
that I'm getting caught by all of the time.
- He will teach them how to write with chalk
and draw their own outlines, while they dance
under the flickering light of murder.
- As they squeeze out their creations
from every hole that makes a sound
and howl from the pain at their centre
vowing never to open their wicked eyes
and spy on the souls of the angels.
- As they sing with heathen voices
and hardly ever sigh alone
while they sit alongside the fire
and everyone see's the light.
- As they long to touch each other's skins
and are unable to refrain from doing so
leaving me to articulate the longing
that others never have to feel.
I'm not even good at it.
- As they wither with forgetfulness
and burn with indignant rage
when confronted by these depressives
who remind them the darkness is in fact real.
- He will teach them how to side-step all that
and rearrange with their minds
and imagine alternatives
- They smile, almost all of the time
that queer, surprising, dividing line
that seems to expose me every time.

- I will continue on
with the help of the lion's fear
- I will continue on
with or without the soft lips of the muse at my ear
- I will continue on
having difficulty in relating to my peers
- I will continue on
until there's no need for a Riverman here

04/06/2015