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Cleaning The Gutters
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
color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">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.
