Cleaning The Gutters

The sun is up and so am I

Risen with me up each rung

To see what the eaves

Had decided to collect.

I couldn’t finish in a day

How could I with so much filth in one place,

Taking years to get there

It will take more than an afternoon

To be cleaned.

With every stinking fistful

Of festering foliage

And putrid sticks

Once supple gone soft in rot,

All of it warm with the 

Fervour of decay,

With every grotesque handful

Of salivating storms of old,

I was reminded of my own heart.

The long hours of tedious labour

It can take to clean just one corner,

And to do so is so risky.

Up two floors above the ground

Only air around to catch me,

A strong breeze could

Murder me with a whisper,

One clumsy step

In the attempt to unclog myself

Would invite death to open up its jaws.

The sun beat down

Sweat runs into my eyes

The gritty mess in my hands

Smelled strangely like a dead version

Of the sea, I dream I’m afloat on.

With no rudder

No map or way to steer,

Just a deep ocean beneath me

Guiding stars above me

And current behind me

Pushing me towards a horizon,

A frosty wind rushing me forth,

Smoke signals from my lungs

Say every breath is a flag

From a nation still thriving

Left to float away on the secrets of the north.

But this, the sand and seed pods

In my wet and wrinkly palm,

This carcass of a promise

The tease of that scent

Only reminds me that

If my words were steel

I would build myself

A prison inescapable,

Ignorance is a plant, left unpruned

Will strangle every good and fruitful tree,

And clog up the very best parts of me.

I have been foolish and stupid

Letting every supposed obligation

Get between me and my dreams

Between my soul and its source

The river and the sea it searches for.

The sun sets on all things

Especially these gutters

Plans not acted on

Seem to rot quicker than all else.

Why bother with clocks if they

Don’t measure the most important things,

Like dust, I let gather on seasons of plenty

Until the raiders come in times of famine

And there is nothing left of me.

They don’t tick for all my useless talk

Of postponing today until tomorrow

So I can rest my eyes

Under angry skies and

Lies about me I make true

By my stagnancy.

Today I learned a lesson

That with purpose

Comes responsibility,

And that like these gutters

It is backbreaking work

To right such great wrongs

Like letting myself get

So full of things unmoving

That water that should make me bloom

If unmended will only

Cement me in my doom.