A Tribute

Personal Metaphor

I write these tired poems
to escape a fatalistic fate.
That I am but a man
whose stead has long been claimed
upon this murky swamp.
Foundation mired in mud
with vine-like tendrils cracking away
at a conscious facade.
My illusions are all gone
sunken away
banished perhaps.
Like a long time fog,
one used as a childhood blanket.

Today I shall earn a wage,
then bury my life's work.
As the water fills my mouth,
I would choke and scream
except for now I see
this is the way
it has to be.
From the depths of a dirty pool
suspended in a stasis.
A light beams down,
the sun I suppose,
it turns my surroundings gray
and fills my lungs with loneliness.
In that I know, you know.
Turn away,
if it helps.

My words you see sound wrong
cause I can not scream loud enough
from these depths I dwell.
Yet these will be my last
so perhaps write them down.
Unto your children let them pass
so I can drown faithfully.
There will be others who know,
where it all began,
where it all broke.