By Alfred Brown
This is the poem where I finally got to use the sentence that had been rattling in my brain for a few years “Everything was fine until I got shot in the face.” I wrote it first sometime, probably around 2013, then I did some edits to it around 2014 or 2015. The intention with the edits was to make the poems into songs.
61 -fading fast
I was fading fast
I couldn’t last
I had to do
something quick
Now in the past
I’d act crass
And behave
quite the prick
But today i knew
What to do
Was to think
before all else
So i took a few
Minutes to
Stop and check
The cosmic pulse
C
Is she here …
the one I’ve looked for
I’ve looked everywhere
Then I looked some more
I even prayed …
for a sign in a church
But i never found her
no matter how i searched
I hate to rush
But i must
Because there is
no more time
I hate to admit
That this is it
But if i don’t I’ll
Lose my mind
I’ve tried so long
To not go wrong
But I’d keep on
Wrong regardless
I’d try to do right
But lose each fight
Because it mattered not
if i did my best
So now I’m leavin
Because I’m seein
It is all
beyond control
It doesn’t matter
Is what i gather
But it’s nothing
i can hold
So goodbye
And if i die
Know i blame
no one but myself
Because i failed
When i could have sailed
And thus i lost
It all, oh well
—
Cry for me
If you see
My body
lying in a grave
It is not
From what i got
But what i had
But then I gave
For what I had
Was in fact
A long and
Arduous day
And like a fool
I was a tool
For those who’d
Take me for a knave
I had to give
And so I’d live
But then i gave
And so I’m grave
I worked all day
Till night gave way
And still I’d toil
And take no rest
I’d work for hours
For the powers
Who would pay me
Enough I guess