A Tainted Saint

A tainted saint with the heart of troubadour and the smoldering mind of an alchemist, ever so certain that each of the words freely flowing from his calloused fingertips, tempered and crafted by the fertile wilderness encroaching on his love blind mind, are custom works of gold gilded, magnificent art.

Crossing the comfortable confines of his study, littered with books, balance sheets, ale bottles, ashes, and the echoes of the mad cap laughter he always imagined coming from a jury of his peers, he contrives to convince himself that he won’t cry a roiling river over these broken jukebox, jug band blues he seems to have slunk into.

Now standing, overlooking the unkempt foyer, half-sagging into a sort of standing fetal position that only people with broken hearts can ever seem to maintain, tears streaming, as he uses the railing of the dais to hold himself half-steady. Doused by the fire, dripping with the flames of passion, the liquid fire that began as a spark in his battered heart, and fueled by the lonesome ache in his belly, rolls down to where his gnarled hands meet the railing, and pools like some oddly radiant candle wax. The spiritual conflagration is only partially quenched by his solitude and the deeply held, unbending faith that somehow this tender situation will see certain resolution before the darkness stubs out the flame for good.

The deluded long con, the self-induced penitentiary, the razor chicken wire, bird cage, sing-song repository he built out of scrap metal resentments only compliments the rusty anchor of not being willing to provide what she wants and needs, constantly rattles, clank, boom, and steam in the valley of the skull. Side-stepping, for fleeting moments of mind-time, vacation days, the ape shit, 3 ring, circus sideshow that he’s become numb to living in has become the official rational past time. Diamond days sparkling such as these always leave him with the fast-forward, magnetic recollection of getting plowed into by a truck on Fillmore and Oak, as the smoke billows from his ears and the lime light dims in his eyes; terribly alone, old as brontosaurus bones, and ruefully confused. 

Still standing stuck (what the fuck?) like briar fox to tar baby, Le Brea pitfall, mighty mucky adventures in a drunken poet’s daydream, trying to chew his way through the ties that bind, his muddled mind bending spoons, like some vaudevillian, bespectacled, musical magician named Charlatan Charlie. He becomes, that is, he so often becomes too tightly tangled up into his aquamarine emotions, all the while being dragged head long into the Mercurial, azure storm of hers, with rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. Fantastically, the white flag is still there.

Furtively, he questions himself, “Will I ever get my shit together?”

He tilts his head to one side and gently shakes it with a slight pursing of the lips into a self-deprecating sneer, with painful wince accompaniment, to complete the harmony of the Discordian choir chanting and clawing at his senses in a whole-hearted attempt to fatefully get him to admit that he fancies himself a coward that doesn’t have what it takes to grow wings and fly furiously towards the goal, which only grows bigger as one approaches it. 

What’s the story, morning glory? 

Is he a fatalist finalist in the gritty triathlon called life? 

“Dunno.”

“Wot!?" 

“Nevermind.”

Tethered, feathered, and fluttering, the dust roils, twisting devilishly, from underneath the furiously beating wings of this common earthling. The talons gripping the seams, tearing at the woven fabric of his torturous rationalizations. Startled, and in a pause of panic, he jolts back into his study and splits the whiskey down the middle with a hot knife, muttering to himself about daydreams and heartaches. The writer’s blocking, crimson tendrils tickling temporal lobes, compresses time, blank stares and fatal dares in the reading room, stroking his graying beard. Patsy’s gone, took a walk. She saw the light. The family strengthened by the sacred right, where we belong; no promises or demands. 

Love, this battlefield, seems barren. 

Regroup.

Rally the troops.

Brashly send them to storm the enemy bunker.

Belay the order.

Drop your weapon.

Melt into your cot.

Gnaw on the idea.       

Then sleep on it.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Any questions?

Leonard Cohen - Last Year's Man