IN THE LEAST INTRUSIVE WAY

IN THE LEAST INTRUSIVE WAY

I would like to change the world, in the least intrusive way,
From my bedroom and computer, through a verse of godly praise.
To forge a spell or break a curse,
For good or ill, for bad or worse,
I would like to change the world, here in my final days.

I tried to change the world before, but it was too intense.
The life I lived in days gone past no longer makes much sense.
People have seemed strange to me, sometimes brought me pain,
Left me holding empty hands in the midst of a brutal rain.
My eyes have filled with solemn tears, regretted much over many years.
Sometimes I fear I've taken much more than I have given,
Sometimes I fear I'm only here, but never really living,
A sad clown in his greasepaint taking precious space,
Only here by luck or chance or God's amazing grace.
Wondering if it's all for naught, just a waste of breath,
Remembering sins of yesteryear, courting early death.

I would like to write a peaceful quiet tome of lonely love,
Here in my room a recluse of little use to anyone.
I would like to change the world through art,
Like a loud and crazy upstart.
A once and former Thoreau or Emerson,
A modern day Emily Dickinson.
You can read my awkward verse or not,
It's of no import to me.
But I hope before I hit the grave,
To send a message bright and brave, 
To make whole just one fractured soul,
On his or her most desperate day.
I would like to change the world in the least intrusive way.

You can cast me off the dock of your heart,
A refugee at last I'll be, at least I will have played a part.
A bit part in this game of wild and random chance,
You can be my friend or enemy, my partner in the dance.
Be it a dance of amorous desire or a dance of bitter hate.
Rest assured that I have done my best to earn my final resting place.
There is no condemnation you can heap, that I have not heaped upon myself.
I am sidelined by a love of sleep, I am banished to the banal shelf.
I am tormented by the strangest things and dream the strangest dreams.
I feel myself unraveling, seam by anxious tattered seam.

All I have is my trade to ply of putting words on screen.
All I have are my cries in the night, my bruising bitter screams.
All I really want to do in the months and years still left to me,
Is to throw my arms around the world and for the world to let me be.
Is to walk in the sun at least once a day with my lover and my friends.
Nothing gross or grandiose, between now and the bitter end.
To throw off the chains of judgment, to see in a different light,
To know I did the best I could, with my busted lens and my limited sight.

Still I rise and try to see myself through new compassionate eyes.
Still I wonder for my purpose and try to pierce my own disguise.
I have had enough of tongue wagging, my spirit worn and sagging.
I have wasted so much time, only to drown in the salty brine.
Before I go, before I die, grant my soul some room to play,
Let me once just change the world, in the least intrusive way.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED