Madman Calls For Me

And he's got the connotations of a madman,
but not quite driven over the edge.
The sane clouds
found only in abstract paintings.
White-walled hospital wards.
Boulevard shopping sprees.
This will be mine-
Bringing dead hopes
alive.

And when the awful plight
of your journey is over-
I will be here.
Waiting with cassock and pearl in one hand.
With my many split-ends splitting
and falling onto the floor.
Spelling out the words "no more."

And help.
Why should I help?
When all along
You hold your pain so close.
It's there in the morning when you wake up.
Ready and eager to greet you.
Do you even know
how many silently suffer just like you?
This is nothing new.
And how can you know what you're losing
when it's already gone?

Scream all you want
about how life is under whelming.
How incomplete you feel
with the other half
half way across the country.
She will always be here with us.
Her face floating up in between
every conversation.
In one mode or another.
A reminder:
You can never escape from the person
You truly are.
And when it grows very still-
How you love to agitate situations to move!
Move me .

To go down that route-
Once again
with a madman in tow?
The streets curving in and letting go.
With neon lights flashing
sign language
and the blown out windows.
With dead hopes surfacing,
surfacing.
How can I turn away?

And as the fondness grows-

Once again
You are one to know.
Once I can, I can never let go.