Complaint Poem by Tom Courtney

Next to my sleep my sheets tossed in a heap
Add night’s twists and toil to another day’s turmoil

A traffic of refuse runs mad through my mind
I can’t sleep alone nor sleep with my kind

I lie in the darkness no sleep likely comes
I wonder what goes and don’t know what comes

I can’t speak of life any more than I fly
On wings clipped in heaven, with smiles that cry

With all of my knowledge it’s true I’m confused
I’m taking what’s given me I’m all that is used

And what is this state where I’ve come the full circle?
My mind’s a wind eddy, my thoughts are a’swirl

I lie in this tomb, all the world’s reversed
This life is a death, it’s all been rehearsed

I don’t find much rest in my wearisome state
Far be it from me, perhaps it’s my fate

But the night is so late, the day was to do
The confusion and pain are only too true

The parts of this puzzle are hard to decipher
I’m signed up for life you could call me a lifer

What choice have I got? What powers are wrought?
In this land of fast food, this land of fast thought?

This place where we seldom have time to slow down
Fast groups and fast friends, fast beginnings and fast ends

I’ve seldom appeared to myself quite so grim
All that’s been said and been done, I am him

I search in the dark for my missing soul
That shines like a beacon and hides like a mole

Each day is a welter of just who am i?
This question persists do I do or I die?

What place do I have in my life’s interface?
With all that is holy, with all that is grace?

Explain to me please if you think we are fine
Just step up and speak. Put the toe to the line

We say how are you? And how do you do?
I’m fine just as well, just great thru and thru

I walk and I talk like a civilized being
I wear the straight jacket where nothing is feeling

I walk the dark alleys where no one is home
This abandonment of life is the grist of my poem

I can’t see the suffering of others around
I’m far too immersed. In my own chains I’m bound

I’m selfish to the point of no probable rest
I’m too focused on me. I’ve failed the test

The stark walls of hi-rise, the courtyards of play
Melt far from my meaning. I’ve the devil to pay

This lament of my life serves what purpose or matter?
As for love or for grief, I’ve got more of the latter

I cry to my soul “say one meaningful thought”
It seems that I should, it seems that I ought

To give of myself to my sister and brother
God take me in dreams and put here another

Oh light in the sky, that arc light of night
Are you the lord waiting, can you make my wrong right?

Oh this I believe, that there’s nothing I know
I’m uncertain whether I stop or I go

Wherever you are lord, make sense of this world
Please come to your people, a banner unfurled

We ponder and struggle, til pain stabs its point
You could take us all up, heal mind soul and joint

We hobble about, immersed in emotion
We search and we struggle to find the right potion

I play out my part til I’m drained fully clean
There’s little that’s heartfelt. It’s plain to be seen

But late now the night. I can feel the heel
Of time’s burning tablet, of dawn’s turning wheel

And I know that someday, I shall leave this hospital
And so just for now, I complain just a little