“Stuck”

 

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-25)

 

Down on my luck

Stuck and useless to myself

Like a superfluous manual still sitting on the bookshelf

For an appliance, long surrendered as scrap

Winter brings this mood

When I am snowed in and coming unglued

Fresh air, available nowhere

Temps in the teens

Frost on the window screen

Winds making the mercury dip

My only hope is a streaming, time-slip

Across decades when the clock hands spun out of control

And I sold my immortal soul

For a mess of porridge

Do not think that this choice came easily

It was taught to me, rightly

And I obeyed

Because to do otherwise would have been judged

Like a test score, undetectably fudged

With notes under the desk

I never quite got the vibe

Though in fact, I hid the habit inside

An ache that persisted

Though I rambled and resisted

Making believe that I wanted the yoke

That actor’s performance portrayed

For use as a cloak

Body and mind, broken to bits

Too soon relieved of wisdom and wits

The mirror mocked me unmercifully

When I would peer deep into that looking glass, for clues

Honest and sharp

The image of a hungry heart

Unfulfilled by my penitent petition

Years after the seed was planted

And the maker turned his attention to other children in my class

I fell off the map

Past crevices, folded

Disciplined and scolded

For going astray

And oddly, the deed that damned my drive

Made me feel more truly alive

Liberated, though castigated

Leaping, loping, indefensibly hoping

That this turn from the testament would bring a reward

A pencil rub, and a change of the box score

A miracle of sorts

That was where I landed after tripping on the curb

A foolish fop, mentally disturbed

Rearranged from shattered shards

Into something that could only be recognized through a play of the cards

Aces high

A swath of smoke splitting the sky

Tracing the outline of an emblem, long disused

And childish excuses

Spat forth from chapped lips

A rhyme written in crayon

On the pages of a coloring book

That, at last broke the ram-jam

Let the flow resume for this wayward walker, on the lam

Willful and worn

No longer true to form

Dizzy but daring

If beheld in the harsh light of midday, I might have turned pale

The essence of what I used to be, reduced in scale

For a spin of the gambling wheel

That bargain had much appeal

So, I met the challenge with a physical strike

A roundhouse kick to the exit door

Like Chuck Norris, metaphorically going to war

And now, I am stuck no more