“Nothing”

  

c. 2026 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(9-26)

 

 

I have nothing, except for my pain

Dancing on a pin cushion, lumbering and lame

Better off when I can sit

Far removed from the use of a first aid kit

My failings have multiplied, numerically whole

As I have reached the age of a senior soul

Gone gray to quickly

Gone to a realm both puzzling and prickly

Does it matter if I rise in the morn?

When the grand orb glows, golden and warm

My footsteps wander as I trace a path

Stumbling over talismans from my past

There was a time when I stood tall

Able and eager to answer the call

Of ambition and sacrifice, twin quantities of worth

But now I scratch out figures, lazily in the dirt

It did not take long

To compose this epitaph in song

Hear ye, hear ye

The hours run, fleetingly

A flash of light from an instamatic cube

While I fall over the wingtips of my two-tone shoes

All the while, I realize

Listening ears have now turned aside

I am alone, yet aware

Lost in a void of silence and blank stares

As the moments expire

And this descent into the eventual comes randomly, like a wildfire

I want to lodge a protest

To feast at the fest

But what I possess constitutes a zero

With a sigh and a shrug, no season for heroes

Nothing is the name

A spin of the wheel in a gambler’s game

Jaws drop around the table

I would escape, were I willing and able

But my feet move too slowly

I have been brought to heel, the one and only

It doesn’t matter anymore

With no dealer keeping score

The words of a noted laureate, may echo from on high

But that wisdom is little more than a cracker crumb for a fly

Too insignificant to matter

As I teeter toward the hereafter

Nothing is my prize

Polished and preened for this daunting demise

Nothing I am now

Nothing shows me the why and how

Nothing gilds the arch to its keystone

Nothing plays the trumpet, and trombone

Nothing is my legal name

Nothing fits me, all the same

Nothing nags with a smattering of truth

Nothing is the omnipotent foe that no one would choose

A heartbeat of marching bands, upon the street

Boots and braces, all along the concrete

If I could find a reason to rebel

That certainty might inspire a groundswell

But trembling hands do not make amends

Knocking knees attract no friends

Only the night will obscure what is seen

Which otherwise is visible with a glimmering sheen

Too obvious for a denial

Too extensive for a case-study file

It could fill the drawer with evidence

A long-running trail of mistaken moves, and consequence

I know the tale so well

It is a lesson learned, a sorcerer’s spell

Laced up and tied with a bow

An eagle crying, “Look out below!”

Deep in a dare to dive from the edge

A cluster of clues, hidden in the hedge

The last response of a hospice subject

Nodding off on his bed, from a litany of regrets

Flesh turned chalky, pale and thin

A weeping of sweat trickles down the chin

Nothing in its wake

Stirred by the force of an unpredicted earthquake

Then, breathless and still

Make of it what you will