HAVE A MOMENT'S PITY

HAVE A MOMENT’S PITY

So easy to snuff out the fire, to extinguish the life of a fragile heart.
I’m hanging to life by a slender thread, always missing the mark,
Clinging to all I have ever known, tallying each new breath.
Yet sometimes I count myself among the dead,
And sinking to my lowest depth.

You could pull the rug from under me,
the pillars could come crashing down.
The best it is behind me and I’m running out of time,
My confidence is shaken, like a battered town along the fault line.

I scarce know how to stay afloat, the oars are missing from this flimsy boat.
The lighthouses my only guide have lost electricity,
And now I’m drifting rudderless on tempestuous seas.
Hold off your hail and lightning, have a moment’s pity on me.

I was with you from a long time past,
Perhaps my fabled golden age was destined not to last.
But tears, they fill my anxious eyes, when I think of that last goodbye.
And in the name of progress, you could aim your wrecking ball
Full speed and merciless against my shrinking world,
And it will be too late for me, once that thunderbolt is hurled.

So easy to step on the helpless ant who longs for nothing but a crumb,
Don’t leave me to my blackness dire, when the fire dies low and the soul lies numb.

Hold off on your thirst for novelty and change,
My sleep is restless, stained with demons,
The losses mount, and life turns strange.
The world is spinning and I am falling, struggling hard to keep apace.
Have a moment’s mercy on me, a second of your healing grace.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2010
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED