42. THINGS I CAN NEVER FIGURE OUT

THINGS I CAN NEVER FIGURE OUT

('to ruination')
I am in a room with very little light,
someplace I can never properly illumine.
Unable to find things, I stumble on -
occasionally hitting this or that object
in some painful way. A lesson to be learned
therein? Perhaps, but not. I shudder to think
of all that I've misplaced.
There are those saying (always) 'change the light,
put in a brighter bulb' and all the rest.
It wouldn't really matter, but they don't know.
My philosophy is a feeble candle, a barely illumined
yellow which paints walls dark and brown - it's
never a question of 'candle-power' or of
a wattage lost or found.
For I am HERE and here I'm bound:
shackled like a hardened criminal to some
wall, pierced like some St. Stephen by those
willful arrows - or even, in this brutal half-life of
illogic and reason, hung upside down to die or burst.
Either way, I lose. Which is worse? I'll never
really know. For (incredibly) I'm not so bad off
in this dire situation - I'll take what comes,
my place, my station. 'You only live once.'
Here's to ruination.