can't fly free

they look at me as they pass
the suits, the ties,
the abandoned stares ...

they look at me as they pass -
the bearded freak in a silly hat,
reading a book,
"What would he know about
reading books, this bearded fuck
in a funny hat?"

I nod and go back to reading.
they are better than me,
they know the ways of social angst,
they have done things that I cannot
imagine. they have impossible jobs
and make impossible money.

one is wearing a shirt that is worth
more than a good portion of my soul.
they have degrees that they're still
paying for -
twenty years to go -

I've read a lot.
no paper to show for it.
but I have something they can't imagine.
I have the understanding that none of us
will live forever. and I will never leave my
children
that burden.

they think their money makes
them immortal. I don't know how to
tell them they're wrong.

I go back to reading the drunk
author who fucked and begot
fuckedness, the mad author with
the bluebird that lived inside him,
the prophet author, the prophet poet
who was able to let that bluebird
free. he is better than all of them
put together on their best days.

I am bearded and alone, reading a
book by a madman in the faint light
that filters though the window of my
cage, wearing a hat, watching lunatics
pass by, giving glances of betterment
and disillusion as a bluebird flies freely
overhead.