No, not much approaches the joy
Of a well-made box, cooked an additional minute
With perhaps an extra quarter-stick stirred in.
And then to sit with the steam and savor
Its creamy simplicity, cut, of course, with a barley brew
Whose sharp bubbles serve well the inner child
In assertion of age, sufficiently advanced,
And of autonomous manhood, mustered and wrought
In stubble and plenty of well-worked years.
Musing, I convince myself against the idea
That my non-alcoholic has been emasculated, one often claimed
In the jeers and smirks of those thinking themselves somehow freer.
Only freer to stumble and speak stupidly, I contend.
Alone with my macaroni, it's somehow gratifying to grumble
Against something. A mere effort in avoidance? Could be...
Could be
Because it remains in the room
Beneath bowl, bottle, and alcoholic ambivalence
The same still question constantly imposed by the void.
Driving me to madness, around and around
Like ceaseless rats on rusty wheels, this bloodshot search
Silently steals my sight and sound balance.
No, it doesn't end, though summer come
Though seasons spend and speed me toward my final day
The question remains a threatening doom.
But tonight I hide in the safety of a childhood meal
A soft blanket in the bleak, and my drink, a cane, props me up
To walk another week or year. To reach...
O, to reach
This right arm towards heaven, in hopes
Of more than answers, more than issuance of manhood or destination
More than mere relief of worldly burden
But to find strength and be strengthened
To find freedom and completion and power in release of these commodities
To find the Lord at His table, to recline and to feast
And to behold what wondrous clarity spoke
The light into day, the breath into Adam, the answer into the depths
Of the void and the very soul of Satan, still beloved of God.
And to find compassion for that vicious asker
The one who would offer only death in rhetorical response
The one who so inadvertently shows even the lowliest soul not beyond the reach of love.
So now, in victory, I head to reheat the rest and open another;
For it seems the journey of this evening has again lightened and returned me
To simple and sufficient boyhood joys, such as those of macaroni and a tasty import.
Written 5-7-08
Whittier, CA