Lonely Man

The ways of the world are breaking me in two.
One half is drowning. The other half is swimming.
One half is helpless. The other is happy.
The happy man worries about the drowning man.
The happy man is good with words.
The drowning man detests words.
He never talks. He met the happy man at a party.
He had no idea what he was going to say.
The happy man had stolen all his words.

"We will fight the worst of our fears," the happy man was saying.
"I can't even make sense of a stop sign," thought the helpless man.
"Sometimes I feel like there's something missing."
"I feel like there's something missing all the time."
"What brings you to this party?" asks the happy man.
"I wanted to steal my words back," says the drowning man.
"I can't give them to you that easily," says the happy man.
"My life is a mess. I've said that much. Now all I want is a few words."
"What makes you think words are the answer?"
"They are my foundation. Without words I am bereft of life."
"I always thought there were more important things."
"Well there are not."
"O.K. Here are some coins. Here's a penny, a nickel, and a dime.
Start out with the penny. Let things fall down on you.
Let wheels, bottles, and bowls fall from the sky.
It might hurt, but you have to get used to them again."
"Here, take this."
"What's this?"
"It's a dollar. These are my struggles with a novel I will never read,
a trip I will never take, and a person I will never meet."
"Thank you. Your goals are within reach.
All of them can be done with pennies, nickels, and dimes."

Both men went away happy though neither knew truly how to swim.
One was the water. The other was the coins. One was the dollar.
The other was an idea. One was the water. The other was the swimmer.

Night is Broken

I remember my dreams in the lines between an article
in yesterday's newspaper. There was more interesting news
on the front page. The article was buried in the cold zone
of a weather report. It was the record high for the city
where it happened. There are 200 dreamers in the metropolis.
It never rains when I dream. My eyes are brown and sometimes
green in my dreams. The night is broken by my footsteps.
I am walking slowly into the news of my melody.
I am partly blind and sometimes sunny. My dreams are humid.
I am occasionally in the city of my thirst. The roads are being paved
while I dream. The traffic turns left into my dream.
They drive new cars into my past. They sleep at rest stops
while I write letters to Dear Abby. Over 200 dreamers subscribe
to my newspaper. They are sound asleep now.
     They dream the newspaper cover to cover.
Their dreams are reprinted in the pictures.
The pictures are sent to the sleepless nights of the city press.
The deadline is the home team's last at bat. The 200 dreamers
are on the visiting team. Their manager wakes up when the traffic
comes to a stop. He drives an old car lost in the city's network
of dreams. He asks a reporter for directions. The reporter writes
a story that the home team went to work while the dreamers sat out
a rain delay. Their uniforms are clean and sometimes dirty.
The grass of the infield grows high so stories will be slowed down.
The paper of the scorecard is green so the pitcher will remember
the color of his eyes. He throws a curveball that curves right
in my dream. My infield wakes up in the dawn of our victory.
The smell of the fresh cut grass undoes the deadline
of the home team. A dandelion appears in the outfield.
The loss outshines any escape the dream is able to make.