Losers Cycle





I.

where there should be strength 
or faith
I find this needy child
eyes filled to tear
heart filled with fear.

where I should stand proud
and laugh out loud
there is this bent little man
who says he can’t,
who waits on calamity,
and I’ve found no answers
except time
and shame
and sham




II. 

Bruce Chatwin says it’s the lion
that stalked us through our early nights,
through the cave where we sheltered from the cold,
that set the chill in our hearts.
Terror waits in shadows, and in cinema,
on the fair ground rides,
in any disguise she wears for her amusement.  

Are these the butterflies in my stomach?
No!  My fear’s more prosaic.
All those little humiliation,
feeling incapable and failed,
the hag of death licks my face…

The dreamtime lion roars.
I rise and soar, and saw, and sore…


(there is an unwritten, but voiced,
"r" at the end of "saw")






III.

I turned up very meekly at the bank.
"I wish to claim my inheritance:
the earth and the right to stand on it,
to eat its food,
to shelter in is houses
and drive its BMWs."

There are a lot of us
poor feckless meek ones
doing our best
- Mister Nice Guys,
Bleeding Hearts -
and we’ve come for our due portion,
a stone,
a crust, a begging bowl.
Glamour past us by.
God slipped us into the appendix.



IV.

We are not an exclusive club
the intelligent sensitive underdog group
though we are pretty boring
to the stylish winners set
who see us as born losers.
Well, we’re winning the important things
like intelligence and sensitivity

"How intelligent is it 
to spend your life in poverty?"

Well, you’ve got a point there.
Point taken.

We are not an exclusive club
the sensitive underdogs.
And we are evolving.  






V. 

"You will not find peace
until you have removed all the nails…"


how am I attached to my pain?

the alternative to my bleak day
would be to get onto the silver surf board
asea in "God’s love",
the world let go,
flowing
flowing
scary scary
no solid port,
only the sea
of being
vast forever endless.
no sleep
except within the rock of my pain.

It - life - is flowing.
there in no harbour but bliss.
So I sit in this garden
suspended between fear and freedom
and watch a spider crawl cross the page.