Blame

11/24/13

I often rest the blame on you

Because its true

Its heavy, worries me, weighing

On this quarter life.

 

A quarter life what I’ve learned:

How to count

How to count breaths

How to count my blessings next

How to count on no one else

How to count the dollars

 

Counting next, I’m sure, the cars

The planes, the trains, the manicured yards

I visit through the scheduled days

Of 20 years of “you must” attend

To whatever man or lady

Who calls me to pay, to lend.

 

A quarter may depreciate

double, in time, I appreciate

The value now, but for my future friend

What is it, then, a quarter’s use?

In yellen another quarter’s call

Continuing to slip and fall,

Only cheap beads from weathered hands

I will afford, several quarters need to spend. 

Livelihood may evolve to tougher breeds of contraband,

What then?

 

For I’ve ignored those hands as they reach out, quiver

Then retreat from the cold wind’s attack.

I’ve acknowledged, counted, read the lips,

Dismissed those hands as they draw back.

 

Surely, my hands will draw in quarter’s time,

Beneath the thick of blankets, bags, and cardboard,

Calling out, an undulating line

“Help me, just some food, no where to go”

No bed, no hearth, not a ticket to

Or from or place to leave my word.

 

I’ve left the hands, relying on myself.

I’ve chosen trinkets selfishly, counting my pay

I need rest the blame upon my shelf,

It seems it’s driven deep in the back of my shoulders

Just enough behind, just out of way.

 

                                                                        

But these shoulders are intent to weigh

The happiness of memory

The nostalgia of a warm embrace

A calm song, the beep of the message machine

A snowy walk for imagination’s sake,

paddling glassy smoothy across the lake.

Its not so bad looking at it all

Side by side on the shoulder shelves.

The items worn and thick with the dust

Every item whispers of us.

 

But blame its placed there,

By the carefully manicured hands,

Of whatever clerk removed

It from its box, marked fragile

Marked New for This Season

Manufactured in a foreign place.

 

And each season, again, again

Other things from blame’s collection

Untouched by the smoke and spice of home

Crowd these shoulders,

Crowd these shelves

Weigh heavy and steal my thoughts

Away from those warm, worn treasures.

 

A perfect collection marked

By cold and stark and cheap

Ideas of what might have been better

If I had counted that money right.

Blame sits on this shelf

It does not leave my site.

 

So I gently try to rest it on you

Although you have not chosen such an easy game,

You did not pick it up because it seemed

To feel right in the palm

Of your hand

You did not make this mistake.

 

So I must take the blame back

And acknowledge as I sit alone

In a café, one of hundreds the same,

That it is mine to organize among

The things I love and cherish

And that blame I thought to give away,

You would not shoulder anyway

And I would never ask you to…

Do I dare disturb your memories too?  

 

The song you sing is light

And all I have is heavy

Generic thought of wanting more

Of what it is that weighs me down.