Sew The Seams Of A Poet's Dreams Poem by Joe Cabrera

The hours and minutes
Of our minuscule existence
Are like a road map unto death
Estimated time of arrival
No one exactly knows, do you?

Time is not a race
Though material gain is
We maintain the same pace
Until the spiritual sprain hits
But we're heading to the same place
And there's only one direction you can go, do you

As we wind on down the path
From itch to scratch to scab
With pits of ashes in our past
And smokestacks on the horizon asking for a match
Appeased desire is the only means to ceasefire

Freights carrying fate barreling fast
Afraid of the conductor who asks, are you up to task?
But hides behind nature's mask
Instructing you to stay on track
Don't let your train of thought be derailed
By the catastrophic penny of a microscopic detail

Whatever is in store for your soul, don't sell out
There won't be a resale available at your nearest retail
You cannot buy time
Only bide time, by and by
Until it's bye-bye time
Kafka once compared the self to an insect
I suspect he's correct
Because lately I've been feeling an awful lot
Like I'm constantly caught
In a cobweb of cause-and-effect
Only this web has no e-mail
And the weaving black widow
Is an actual grieving white female
Merrily, wearily, barely, hold on tight
This locomotive life is about to crash

The hours and minutes
That pass us by like honey-drips and shutter-clicks
Can make six-tenths of existence
Feel like it flashed us by in an instant
Through the aperture of reality
They sew the seams from the broken strings
To the tapestry of our hopes and dreams
Or so it seems
And weld together the wrought-iron bonds
Of our interdependence
Like an infinite expanse of chain-linked fences
But you've broken off from mine
And slipped into the distance
So stripped went the senses
Equipped to my defenses
Tripping through the trenches
Betwixt two abysses
Maybe that's why I search every angle conceivable
For something other than hurt that feels vaguely believable
But nothing quite convinces
Because you're name is spoken in vain
And coldly engraved
Not in stone but in past tenses

The man who tells you that these things are gauged
By an omniscient sage
Or a wise-guy in the sky who collects
Down-payments of age
Is a pupil of the ancient vision
Built from blatant superstition
Holding on to a figment of hindsight
That plays tricks on the pigment
To the blind spots in your mind's eye
It's the mental equivalent
Of a pygmy 'pulling your leg' so hard
That they hyperextend your ligament
You see, this maternal earth favors no eternal worth
We're all alone inside a loan
And all we know is all we own
That might be bad news to you
But that's the only sad truth that strikes me as legitimate

The other day while sky gazing
I noticed two sheep-shaped clouds grazing
In a heavenwide celestial pasture
And it got me woolgathering
I guess I shouldn't have worn
My coat of fleece to the wolf's gathering
We meet at the withering tree of memory
And wonder why you had to leave
I attempt to howl at the full moon
It scowls back at an empty me