It was the cluutter that set some people off

they harangued silently

wore sneers of ridicule

A place for everything and everything in its place                                                                                                                                                                        

as they uttered  place  Grace Slicks voice took up his ears singing Sunrise

“ . . . You were a keeper to me Now your animal is free

And youre free to die

Die

Youre old and your hands are gray Youre old go home . . .

Weve heard all your dirty stories

(for) Two thousand years

Two thousand years

Two thousand years

of Your God Damn Glory”

Its  --  not really  --  funny how people think you should hang on their every word

when youve gone away in your head on them

when your eyes dont register their faces

in an ER a doctor would be tempted to put their penlight away and call you dead

yet they stand fast
cool

collected

wait your return

and when you do they question you

--   You hear me

--   I did not

--   Then let me repeat myself

you wouldnt possibly dare to be impolite two times in a row

though if you were them  you would have walked away rather than be ignored

and standing deadeyed  shallowly listening to their remarks   
                                                                                                    youre suddenly aware

you trod on some kind of hallowed ground
of selfrespect  selfreliance 
and you dont need a nagging deity to align or provide you purpose

and then an empathy for them
rises in you 
that you quickly banish

he was very nearly sure they wouldnt advise him of something they didnt practise
and there were plenty more where they come from
that would provide them solace and lend an ear to the misery endured in this Life
to realise Heaven in the next

Amen 
his cluutter
his Heaven

all that matter was whatever it was he needed was within the confines of his room 
scattered and leafed among bookcases boxes smears of other loose pages
held between books or between the pages of books which let the weight of those stacked 
atop them provide the gravity that wouldnt let them slip their onerous task

drawers were good too
and file cabinets

if the police came to toss his place
theyd shrug
and figure they were late to the game

he wouldnt disavow their notion

questionmark spine fuckback dog

they were still twined around his neck on a grimy necklace 
swinging on rawhide grown black from his perspiration 
and their patience endurance

sooner or later
theyd show 
reveal themselves
revel and rebel  he was deftly assured

                                                                were all a notion of hypnagogic restlessness
and they were no more or less than he

his cluutter was as much about them  as himself
otherwise
theyd be bound
and nothing  he could imagine  wanted to be bound or held against its will

ah  to spread ouut

breathe

relax

his stories came spontaneously
something  arrests them
revives them 
and they unfurl
stretch out 
actually come  admitting their full length and height
they snap their jackets with their thumbs at their lapels 
ages dust and dried skin  dandruff  loose hairs   turn to haphazard motes circling round 
and around them 
haloed in the sun or moonlight
blooded by firelight

they cleared their throats 
not many were as sonorous as he would have expected
some were downright shrill and feminine 
however  only in the quality of their voice
not in its cadence or inflection

willful 

luxuriating in their exquisite moment

some people could learn from that

questionmark spine came

he said fuckback wasnt in a mood to
--   Dally with this bullshit 
were his words 
Were plainspoken  You can imagine

then
with motes lazing around him like fireflies 
with a strange light shining in his black eyes
he talked

his spine was tortured to its configuration 
he wasnt a wanted child
and his parents were constantly surprised that he survived off what little they tossed 
him
his growing  like any plant or living thing  eventually snapped the cheap ropes they tied 
him with
they abused him for breaking them 
and when their sharp words had stuffed his ears
and his ears bled 
they would tie him up again

it wasnt until a little girl
who lived in the house behind where he was kept 
who lived behind the tall tightplanked fence his father seriously maintained
whose sensitive nose had smelled him   too long 
who badgered her father   too long
who finally tired of hearing her incessant talk of
that smell

that he walked around the block
and knocked at the front door
holding his little girls hand 
he was going to disband this nonsense

 

and the house exhaled
as its door opened

the little girl threw up 
and her father finally smelled what she smelled

and his father  as her father said 
--    . . . was disingenuous  lying
that her father forced himself into the house 
beat his father down
then beat his mother down too when she attacked him with a kitchen knife

and they found him

and her father 
who never cried 
Cried

--   I suppose this might answer your question  about my back

                                                                                      1617,  Day-Between-Two-Ts,  6  8. 14