MOTHER EARTH

MOTHER EARTH

Mother earth, you have made me to walk a fine line.
Despair protrudes through my skin and bones,
The dirt of lost years poisons my magic potions,
Covers my emotions with the smell of tomorrow's futility,
A relic unconvinced of his worth and utility.

Mother earth, you have made me a drone,
Dependent on the friends who phone
To solve all my depressions,
Who snare themselves in the tangle
of my shaky self-impressions.

Mother earth, your thumb and forefinger
Tap heavily on my shoulder.
Meanwhile I grow so much older.
While autumn leaves blow in the gutter,
And wasted old men mutter of their dreams that fell astray.
Sweet and saccharine mother earth,
There is blood on your hands today.

I sit and shiver in this twisted vessel of clay.
Nerves shot, blood clot, my stomach a twist of impossible knots.
Random chance plays out its dance,
Builds me a shallow grave where I can sink half-alive,
Falling through another of your mud slides.

Mother earth, you must make me brave,
Build me some sort of a sheltering cave.
For the rain it pours but offers no relief,
Brings only sorrow, dredges up grief.
Into the winter I fall like a leaf,
Left over from autumn, antiquated beliefs,
And old foul superstitions 
To these I recklessly cling,
Of snow and ice I sing.
Mother earth, you must build me a tenable dream.

I tremble like a child before dreams that fall away,
Dreams that once seemed possible in the clear cool light of day.
Dreams that once lit up my soul with their promise and their power,
Whose smooth veneer soon disappeared like light from a meteor shower.
I soak up rays that i despise, the sun reveals its evil eyes,
And shows me my flaws and my dismal worth
Yet I linger in the shifting mother earth.

Mother earth, I am left to cope,
With the longstanding challenge of your tightrope.
Black clown walking with grass stained shoes,
Dipped in a paint pail marked the blues,
Perishing in your pool of unbearable sadness.
Is there no way out of this careless earthen madness?

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED