Riverman - A Conclusion

When inspiration sails on by - do your best to capture it in a jar

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