better

this is better:
to be awake
at five am,
inspired by
one last day,
one more filthy
floor to clean
on hands
and knees
because my back
is killing me,

one last morning
of incessant trains
sounding off 
before daylight
through distant streets
which are
no longer home,

inspired by being
the last inhabitant
of almost
empty rooms,
the way i think
my father had become,
within these walls,
within his head
within this life;

still, this is better,
knowing that,
when daylight comes,
although it
will not save me,
will not alleviate
the boredom,
the loneliness,
the self-interrogation
that crawling minutes
sometimes bring,

there is the artifice,
there is the emptiness
that sometimes rings
with its own poetry,
and somehow
that is better...

LPK
11.5.07

back from the wilderness

i  feel a little like moses. uuuh, no, not holy. i'm not that delusional, at least not yet. although the potential is certainly there. it's more that i'm back home this morning feeling strangely satisfied at having been cheated just a little.

see, i've worked my a** off the last three weeks to get my father to assisted living land and, now that the last pieces are about to fall into place, i'm sitting here knowing that he's finally made it, and hopefully lovin' it, even though i didn't get to see it...