Always bleeding to believe,
kneeling creakily, Charlie,
after too dilute solutions
of spirit based ablutions,
mumbles many marble mouthed thanks
for small miracles ...
Then gives way quick
to sick'ning inner agitation,
an over-pouring
of situations interpersonal
unevenly handled-
wherein his unspoke,
unwritten behavioral requisites
went woefully unmet.
Upstanding
he stretches his
too fat flanks,
tries to reign in
his vagrant mind-
"Manipulate's" got a bad rap.
Same as "handle" from hand
La mano, la main...
Which is to say...
tho' I'm assured
-by others-
I'm full of something
more kind than crap,
I'd prefer to lose
this bloody clumsy,
ham-handedness,
this moribund mismangement...
some suavity would do.
My handling ends up
mostly mangling.
A fallen baby bird
by a toddler's hand
is "handled" lovingly,
cupped as would be
any fragrant flower
though it's life expectancy
might not (tho' protest we "should")
exceed an hour- or maybe two.
Thus, there
before the Novembering sea
near the tony cove-town
Charlie's closes his drear
and much deranged eyes,
recites en sotto vocce Crane's
" God lay dead in Heaven...
-very non-verbatim-
til the final unchanged lines-
"But of all sadness this was sad --
A woman's arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast."
Imperfectly,
the poor dope imagines
there at the tidleine detritus
the weeping woman's
fruitless, majestical gesture
'midst the chilling clarity
of her complete grief-
Thusly Charles recovers
the coronary/corrolary
location of the good steel nail
'pon which he'd always
hung his hat 'longside
his possibilities of Hope.
