blind w/out seeing


yesterday i complained about money
about not having money
enough money to live the life i want
but then i don’t really know what that life would be

at 44 i am still searching and i find comfort
in knowing i will never find what i am looking for
but then there are moments

moments when clouds gather and dust turns to mud
when the orange blossoms of the coral tree fall
at my feet and begin to rot

when i look out across my opportunity both those
at hand and those lost

and it comes back to money
about not having money

i went for a walk in downtown los angeles
Sunday morning, just before church but
after the missions kicked all the night dwellers to the street
i see their eyes but they do not see me
i do not exist, not to them, just as they do not exist to most
they wander off in their personal daze searching for comfort, food, shelter and it hits me

it always hits me
i live in a house, i eat on a regular basis
sometimes i buy a chapbook or a six-pack of beer
sometimes i leave change in a dirty cup of an outstretched hand
sometimes i climb out of my own self-pity, my own self loathing, sometimes i remember that i am fine
i have my health
i have opportunity
i have moments beyond the vainglorious

it hits me that i am not a good man or noble or important or
anything other than a line on a page or a number in a government file

i watch these people file out of the missions on 6th street
into the parks and alleys and wonder what i would do, if my own self-pity, became my own self-reality

most likely i would curl  up and die
they are the heroes, not the cops or the firemen, no real heroes are people who survive on nothing, live on nothing,
wake up to nothing and keep moving away from nothing

i am just a whining poet without focus or dedication

for a couple of weeks i won’t complain about anything
but it creeps back
and it creeps back
and it creeps

maybe i will remember
most likely not
i am trying but
some moments i know i am blind



* Jack Henry says: I a writer based in the rolling sage brush of the high desert in South East California. I have had a few things published here and there and if you are that curious please go to http://deadbeatpress.blogspot.com