POETRY

The Little He Knew

A poem

The early afternoon sun shining through the city skyline. Melbourne. 2019. Image credit: Author.

And the little he knew was nothing of use,
When his heart and his head were all lost and aloof—

When his head couldn’t know what his heart wouldn’t show,
And neither together could say where to go.

He’d just go and go and go and be gone,
To places he knew and things overworn.

He’d take to the drink, on the pretension to think,
In some vain attempt to get to the brink.

But nothing he’d know, for no lack of hoping,
Could lead him to grow instead of just coping.

But nothing is helped by such petty devices,
But the numbing of pain and the summing of vices.

‘We all have desires and things we aspire’,
He’d tout for his name as an ignorant liar.

As though somehow this guise was a better disguise,
Than the one he had built through good thought and good tries.

Now he was stuck with bad love and bad luck,
And the loss of that sense of giving a f*ck.

The loss of that sense of purpose and sense,
And the loss of control over surplus and bents.

The loss of his memories of family and friends,
The loss of those moments that weren’t means to his ends.

But he knows the solution to end all this pain,
An honest ablution, a mend to his name;
A letting of blood for the sake of his blame;
Abiding the flood for a break in the rain.

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