LIKE A FIRE ON A WINDSWEPT PRAIRIE

LIKE A FIRE ON A WINDSWEPT PRAIRIE

Like a fire on a bleak and a windswept prairie,
The hand of death sweeps over me, bitter and contrary.
The breath of death with icy cold freezes in its stranglehold.
I am taciturn and lonely, circumspect and wary.

Like gasoline upon the fire, I feel my world explode,
Struggling to break free of this grueling gruesome load.
Onward I stagger, pain like a dagger that overtakes the heart.
I know not where all this will end, nor where it got its start.
The day I gave up hoping to focus on just coping.
The funds I'd earmarked for disaster are dissipating faster.
Faster than a fire through a rat-infested warehouse,
I am sinking in this quagmire just as quiet as a mouse.

Like firemen who are striking, clamoring for a decent wage,
My brain cells they are fighting to get these words upon the page.
Not hard hats nor axes nor the vaunted jaws of life,
Can reverse the fearsome damage of this torn and twisting knife.
So subtly it works its cruel black magic on the brain,
Like a fire on a windswept prairie that begs and pleads for rain.

Rain that falls and swallows flame, rain that gently calls my name,
Speaks to me in riddles of a gallant past.
My body fell and flattened fast, the drugs no longer seem to last.
They like to play and trifle with me, opening windows of opportunity.
Then slamming them shut with a cool, detached delight,
Cold and cruel in bitter spite, 32 in Fahrenheit,
Like a burnished chalice of poisoned wine, that intoxicates before its time.
My final relief from the motherlode these indifferent electrodes,
That perch atop my Martian head, careless as two lumps of lead.
Tremor still a no show, balance failing and stiffness flailing,
I am lucky to be standing, on the stairs and on the landing.

My stars are dark and misaligned, the earth spins lost and out of time,
Each revolution senseless,  a journey adrift and arbitrary.
Like sand against the coastline spent, a fire on a windswept prairie.

Just when I feel there's no relief, no antidote in sight,
You bring to bear your awesome strength, your all engaging might.
The civil war that's gone before, its gunfire strangely burns no more.
A brief and welcome new reprieve, a story I can still believe,
Wraps me in a warm embrace, finds new meaning in your face.

Just when it all seems useless and forlorn,
You come to me and cradle me like a fortunate newborn,
Holding me tight and chasing the fright into the portals of the night.
Your spirit softly fills the room, making it bright and airy,
Sweeping upward like a plume, like a fire on a windswept prairie.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED