9413. SIMSTRAC GLIDUAN

SIMSTRAC GLIDUAN

Dawn comes too soon and these little

feet are walking in the chill. Spring

seems good on paper, but it's not here

until....the heat pipes are turned off, the

windows can send air, and I am again

a happy man, walking. I watched a

movie once, I remember, called by

that idea : 'Dead Man Walking.' I'm

the opposite for sure. 'Dead Man

Walking' is the honorific call-out

that prisoners do  -  they all stand at

their cell doors, staring out in a sort

of perverse respect for one of their

kind going down to his death. The

last walk along the walkway, past

the cells, to his execution. 'Dead Man

Walking,' someone calls out. Never

made much sense to me, but I can

get it  -  despair makes for strange

bedfellows. Anyway, move on.

-

I set the stage a long time back for

what I myself have engineered as a

sorry life, a sort of nothing for the

ending of nothing, Now I'm not

proud of that and that's too bad,

but that's the way it's gone. Nothing

to do now. 'Rue the flue,' like the

chimney says to the grate.

-

And it wasn't always that way.

There was a time when even I

held some promise, to myself.

But then it went. The bleeding

land of the bleating lamb, in its

way; it was my story. 'They're

gonn'a ruin you, kid.' I wish

someone had told me that a

long time ago. But I see it all

now : I was water, running

everywhere, while they were

all in their boxes, contained.

-

It's pretty simple, though

I hate to cast blame.