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On an Umbrella With an Oar

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These blades of grass
Sitting in your pocket
Digging through your lap,
Rooting their scribbles with chokes
Yet you missed the due to post
Now you wait for the next train
With a ticket you dug out the drain
Throwing your pain
Hoping the steel poles would stain.

Your knees hurt, they're weak,
The pregnant lady's in her sixth week,
The baby won't ever know your name
But you wrap your scars in tape
Walk to the end of the rain
Apologize to any who gets caught in them
My mates said it's enough, be ashamed.

The waves come hit your back
Your cheek grazes the track
The silt coming downstream
Turns into the brown of your eyes
And the holes in your umbrella
Don't seem to capsize your heart.

Nice soft focus, the blue skies up above,
Rowing in the floods of every dying dove
Every unlit campfire left in the grove
Littering trash cans with discarded hope
Balance is delicate, either end falls to eternity
And at the very bottom, with old sleeves muddied,
You make a pile of clothes
And every vile thing spit out
Setting out on a fisherman's expedition,
A vagabond destined to drown
When he catches more than he can swallow.

Often, you'll be the example
In scriptures or obituaries
When your defense will do nothing but rest
The vehicles around silent at your behest
Leak for everything that has ever bruised you
And the red lights will seal in their old cassettes
All of it.

So finally, when the droplets
Of sweat or rain or tears, I don't know,
Will dampen, maybe deafen your ear,
Or your sight stuck on raised toes behind bus stops
Oh, you wouldn't know how it feels to fly,
Splash and splash, until the saline hurts
And your palms smell of rotten love,
Just stay still and push and push and push,
Until all windows break, and they stop,
To look and scorn, a human from the sky.

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