I don’t know if she likes the morning, nor if I do either.
But today’s a clear peach and pastel blue.
It seems the toll of work and divorce have hollowed this Lucian girl.
Our Blue Mountain blend yet to be had.
She has a home, sons and plans to renovate.
In the morning she’s ripped from the sanctuary of the night’s implausible ether
Again she all anew performs perfunctory morning routine. Awoken defeated.
I know at times I take on your faults. I believe. I change. I see you don’t.
I sip your poison. It doesn’t kill me, not yet.
8:30 AM and I watch through a mist of resentful defeat,
another facet of this unflinching emotionless machine
A workhouse for the working-poor’s prise possessions.
Afar I see the small distorted faces of those told of their malevolence and evil,
those encouraged to leave quietly,
to think of others, to not make a fuss, being quietly squashed by professionalism’s conformist heel.
The Ruling White Males don’t let a glance escape
an eye’s notice a reserve of punishment and discipline;
too valuable for the mundane pleasantries of the young’s every day.
The Black Females, they’re the Bad Kids,
overly loud, tactile and quite too negroid, their hair illegal fitting
A culture unfitting of moral good behaviour.
It seems the Blacks hate the Gays says the one of the Ruling Males,
the division lies in the beholders blind eye,
unaware that many are one in the same.
Nevertheless, the swathes of young cease,
the school’s front quietens,
the Congolese Janitor closes the gate The Males left open.
Unsolicited
really that’s the only type of honesty there is.
A compliment bubbling through the lips of admiration.
un-tinged by the cynicism of self benefit.
Do I say thanks enough?
To those who do what I’ve come to expect.
To those who meet my assumptions, and fulfill my needs.
I wave a soon forgotten thanks
to those paused at the zebra crossing
allowing me to just catch the tram I would have just been late for.
My friends and family, bastions of support and love,
I see you,
even if my words do not reach your ears.
Perhaps I do not give enough meaningful thanks,
as I applaud my own hard work’s achievements.
But I’d be floored without your outstretched arms, your words
repairing my ego raising a coy smile.
Perhaps I shy away,
to give thanks is to admit a weakness, a vulnerability
healed by another’s words and actions,
a naked appreciation masked in a mini shame.
And so I’d like to thank you Ashley,
for all you’ve done
doing nothing special at all.
Isn’t that all of it,
to reach up to the sun
with fists filled with golden sand,
the hot grains fleeing through the cracked clasp,
and for the sun’s shine to be
silvered by the passing
moods of the earth.
You see
It lies in the false titles
given to those that bear the fruit.
To gain a recognition for deeds done,
the end goal not always in sight.
See… the warmth is blue,
a sombre heat without light
A form of cold pragmatism,
through exchanges of pregnant love.
You see directions are issued,
But to what end should that suffice?
We don’t all crave a destination, but instead
to be hooked – within two arms.
Past midnight,
come the hours of calm.
Where the ether is still,
still enough to see its reflection.
Minds and fingers twitch,
the heady rush of this world’s
many tempting deaths, abandoning reality,
in return to the cold sobriety of the bedroom ceiling.
An alternate version of the poem “Union”.
For those I spent time with at the IOE.
*****
Our time dims twilight as our course draws to a close.
We forecasted a spring never-ending, sharing in optimistic lies, wishing on an unlikely future forever together.
Though together we have blossomed into a family.
J.C. FitzDerick 