Chinaski
The old man was full of gratitude.
He wept with his pen.
Years of sorrow and hard living
spilled out of his soul,
somehow transforming all his scars
into a beautiful mantle called human being.
Some labeled him a poet
others an alcoholic,
yet neither describes fully
the journey a man walks
from his first gut punch
to the peaceful surrender
of his life at last breath.
On buses and park benches,
at libraries in distant cities,
through endless nights listening
to the cockroaches in rented rooms,
came the retelling of his sad story,
of those women he put on the clock,
as he searched for some meaning.
Then one day he became aware
of the invisible help,
which had always been there
and everywhere,
thus putting an end
to his pain without reason.
“My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the ‘light’ and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar.”
This poem has been adapted and was originally shared on February 26, 2017. The original is included in Tomorrow Could Be Wonderful: Brian's Poem of the Day: 365 Daily Meditations Vol. 1.
©Brian Mueller - All rights reserved.
