Remembering

I haven’t traveled all that much, but I’ve been just about everywhere.

I’ve been down the back roads and in the dark alleyways with their smoke filled lamps and their musty stoops and porches,

filled their jesters and clowns and hipsters and smokers, plotting and philosophizing the end.

I’ve seen a lot of things, but I don’t really remember all that much.

Contemplating civil disobedience with the alter boys and the jocks and the stoners in the back stairwells with the fresh sea breeze tickling the nostrils.

I haven’t said a lot of things, but I have had a lot to say.

With the cutters and the goths and the depressed behind closed doors with a tear, talking about nothing at all, nothing really good anyway.

I went to prison once or at least that’s what it seamed like.

I went to prison once behind lock and key,

Dull uniforms and set schedules, and guards,

Visitors, and crooks and thieves,

Fighters and tweekers,

Bikers, the insane, the crazy, the sad, the lonely, and the silence.

I went to prison once and I saw death’s eyes.

I went to prison once and I left a new man.

I never noticed the world until I was on the inside looking out.

I never saw beauty until I couldn’t see it at all.

I didn’t notice nature until all that was left of it was hanging on a wall.

I didn’t notice life until I left it.

I didn’t really notice anything, until I wanted it all.