“Limbo”

  

c. 2026 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(9-26)

 

 

In limbo, of a kind

Affecting a failing body, and sound mind

Flesh and conscience, rudderless due to riddles

Like an unstrung fiddle

Questioning the worth of self

In this maelstrom of health

I had not prepared for a new escapade

A detour from life on a perpetual promenade

But the stumble of my feet

Caused a swerve to a side street

Where the shadows loom large

And cast a spell upon my heart

A gift not given to commemorate

An auspicious date

But instead, the graduation to a different tier

One governed by concern and fear

Over being awake

In a puzzling state

Dangling from threads

A fog of insufficiency loose in my head

As prophets and physicians proclaim

With the signature of my legal name

“You are healed!”

That capricious boast has much appeal

But falls short of literal facts

As I am still situated, flat on my back

On a mound of bedding, wrinkled and rolled

A number on the roster, to be prodded and polled

About my care

By attendants and aides who seem unaware

That I entered their regal realm

A traveler on a ship, with no one at the helm

Only a petition to the void, said aloud

Between opposite worlds, and drifting clouds

This ragged run toward naught

Is the lottery ticket that I bought

When rising from my chair, with open eyes

To greet the sunrise

And now I linger in unoccupied space

A viable voyager, buoyed by grace

But little else except

For the chime of homemade hanger, wildly windswept

Swaying in the breeze

While I consider that this yield has come with ease

From dabbling in indulgence

A habit held since

I lost my way

In sweet limbo, I will stay

Until freed by a necessary change of course

A defiant use of force

That will make clear the disparity between what I was and what I am

A strange, changed, rearranged man

Not a child any longer

Careful and conscious, intellectually stronger

Able to perceive

The cut of a lock and key

Fashioned from the bones of an ancestor

A proud, predecessor

Who walked the earth when it was new

Long before the age of cunning and clues

That mind held a kernel of truth, gone askew

Grains of gold, separate and few

Floating freely, on wings of a moth

A reality fashioned from patterns of whole cloth

One handed down to my lot

A group of gawkers guessing about the dramatic plot

That sealed our souls

A predisposition of genetic roles

To chart being present and aware

In the machinery of a clockwork snare

Wound tightly around its mainspring

Powered by the inspiration of ambition over everything

Pushing onward

Never deterred

From the cause specified

At the beginning of a merry-go-round ride

Twirling on an axle, deep in the center

Spoken of only by a broadcast presenter

In a review of literal events

Under a big tent

Raindrops rolling down the canvas slope

And I am a mere spectator, summoning hope

With so little to know

Evermore, hanging in limbo