[sral]

"The Long Distance Runner" (2011)

I write with the loneliness of the long distance runner,
It's the wish to publish extensive sentence numbers to the general public
as the god given pensive hunger men encompass,
this drink in hand and songset,
offset the deepening sinking sand and this thinking mans' complex.
I feel as if the fire escapes are closed off,
so I boast atop a vinyl crate for a soapbox,
It's dire straights and higher stakes at a low cost,
snowballs, tidal waves, aspiring greats, close-calls,
buried alive with my mistakes and my own thoughts
I chose to walk the path yielding most resistance,
in these times of glass ceilings and broken bridges,
I've grown to live with bad feelings of past dealings and social distance,
facsimilies and those to which I hold a kinship,
and I'm old enough to know the difference
In a game of who's breath is held the longest,
selfish monsters sell for sponsors,
propelling a Helen Keller conscience,
as the teleprompters tell responses,
peddling their compelling promise,
I'm not as well accomplished,
but, hell, I've never felt this honest
Modern fisherman,
hearts and artificial limbs,
starts and abysmal ends of false images,
A staunch, intimate, cognitive response,
faults, and a daunted penmanship,
this is for the idiot savants, and suspended men haunted by innocence.

I know the shape of the wind,
and I caught the one that got away,
it involved an odd, broad, array,
of thoughts of clay,
waterscapes,
gods to paint,
forgotten names,
awful tastes,
lost reclaimed,
and volumes of grey areas that often oscilate,
since I feel they stole heaven from us,
I'm beholding the seven summits,
and there's nowhere to go,
so I'm heading upwards.