Mad River Blind

Is it now time? To turn on the light?
Has enough of it passed? Shall I breathe at last?
And illuminate the situation as it were…?
And how, like in flashes of old projector slides,
There is a youngness in the poor colour quality
Of my life. And how it whirrs, the film,
As it goes round the aged mechanism of my mind.
And how it serves to remind…

Back when it was all in Technicolor Reality,
I knew that it would be a worthwhile investment
To buy some film -the best there was-
And so I gathered up all my years
And rolled them up into a bundle and went off
In search of you;
With my passed life rolled up and tied to a staff, there,
Slung over my shoulder, I went off in search of you.

And I walked and I talked and I sat and I stood
And for a many million years
I performed my act.
(I sold it in fact!)
I tried very hard to convince 'em I was good,
Wholesome Entertainment
"Bring all yer friends! Bring yer wife and her kids!"
"Come one come all to the greatest show of all!"

But never even once did I share. I couldn't care;
Not for them. They were only just a crowd,
Meaningless and rushing on and always very loud
Like a river headed out and knowing not at all how
It’s all the same in the sea -so unlike you and me...

See, I was waiting. For your call...
And it came. And I saw, there
Walking in the crowd, a different face,
I knew, of course. I touched your elbow
Lightly, gently -I was sure you’d recognize me-
I had never met you before but i was sure.
So I asked for you to step for a moment aside
And the crowd flowed on like a mad river, blind.
And I think that it bothered you standing over there
On the wet muddy banks of society…

I remember how you looked at me
And for the first time in years since I’d left home
I noticed how old, how ragged and unimpressive
My time-worn and torn-up clothes, were ugly.
But I was sure it mattered not how crude I appear;
That what I had with me to show would compensate
And clearly state that I had lived,
And was not afraid to live again.
But your eyes, they wrinkled, as did your nose;
As if your skin cringed at the sight.
And you didn't know that I could see
Everything that you could feel, projected
There, upon a screen, upon your face,
Where my life seemed so...
Inadequate.
Was it pity? Were you ashamed?
Were you mortified of me?
Of being seen?

I shook my head and with a laugh
Was about to set down my old staff
And unroll that precious bundle,
Which for your eyes to see,
-I'd carried years! I'd carried years with me!
I suppose I had waited for a lifetime,
Hanging like a dust covered coat in some cupboard,
Wrapped up in plastic, unable to breathe.
And then to tell you my tale, I was about to exhale...

But you stopped me with a gesture and said
“There is no need. I don't wish to hear...
I have a meeting! There, with my friends, at three;
I mean it's a function arranged, for charity;
I would've bought what you here sell...but
I have no money for you at all. A worthy cause,
It calls me out and I am gone. So I’ll see you around.”

I stared at you. As if you joked, perhaps,
And would break out in happy laughs and slap your knee
And tell me. And we both would go. You know?
But you really did think I had come
To sell you junk.
A peddler of trash; of expired sorry dreams.
You saw my act but not me…
You misunderstood.
And that is, as it should... I suppose…
You apologized or maybe not.
And I felt hot.
I went back home and it looked at me.
And that’s why I turned the lights out.