Irrigation Ditch

Irrigation Ditch

Life--who said it has to be lived?
I’m cocooned now inside my head;
Enveloped by a down comforter,
Tormented by a brain out of control.
How deep the electrons go,
Yet I can never rise from the memories
Clinging to the grey matter of my mind.

Have you ever sneezed and just pissed your pants?
That’s the unexpectedness of my mind.
For no reason--as unwanted as a public fart--it becomes my Hell.

Today it has me playing in the ditch.
Mud exfoliating my marked flesh--erasing just a few.
Swinging from the rope into the cow-pie swill,
I am purified.

The curving ditch recreates my fantasy,
Carving a couch I can sit on,
Looking into the empty horizon and hoping for a future.
Instead today I cry--

I faced my truth and buried it in the mud
Along with the top layer of my backside
And at least three halves of a pair of shoes.

Predator at last--tears dried--
I crawled through the murky waters,
Imagining tadpoles in waterbeds and
Plucking the entrails  from crawdads.

Sneaking home--having lost yet another shoe,
I face the mirror of my life.
Hosing off the muck I watch as my fantasy life
Is swallowed by the thirsty earth
And the shadow of “The Eye”
Passes my peripheral again.

Now hands and legs spread against the wall--
Reality’s warped mud angel.
The buckle bites my back until
I am just too tired to wish there was a God.

My mind runs over like rain gutters
In an Oklahoma thunderstorm.
And the stain of it spreads
Like camouflaging mud
Tainted with pure dung and shamed evil.
No penalties--no end.