Past Plane and Charity, on the other side of the Jesus sign, where the street lights stop, that’s where time gets lost for me. Like all of the sudden I am where I’m going and I should be happy I didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to hit the gas or make the turn or wonder how sick I am to have hoped the next truck might cross center.

Sometimes when I get up I expect all my hair to be falling out. I expect twenty pill bottles to be waiting for me, eager to hold me up, like I should step out on the porch and light a cigarette instead of firing up the coffee pot to wait for the fog to lift.

People are looking for me; there are people expecting my return.
The missing leafs are already hanging I am sure.
The thing is even if I went back they wouldn’t recognize me anymore.

There are scars,
my limp has shifted,
eyes milky and discourse twisted.

Even with all the phone calls this conversation’s just what it is and I never expect you to see me again,
for real I mean,
like me as me,
as a dad and all that.

As if by surprise I arrive each day on my feet, I don’t get it, regret it every day I wake up, routine to forget it and I’ve become a professional.

Is this the seminal?

Is this the generative thematic upon which my problematic becomes more than a schematic and matures into the intentional?
Irrational purpose is realizing what’s worthless and acting on the undercurrent of self righteous insanity.

I’m like a blind man searching for sunrise,
and all I hear are leaves rustle as you go by,

like I’m searching for the source of fire
and all I hear are your cries,

like I need some kind of Jesus
and all I have are loose ties.

Complacency bore me away

to my knees,

to a place where there’re tears no one can see,
to a mind of murderous self destruction and legalize regarding Zayin the fatherless seed.

Choked in the bramble and grasping,
fallen from heaven and hoping,
running from hope and collapsing into a paralyzed
state of inaction.

Sometimes we stand by.
Other times we’re victimized.
Sometimes we draw our own lines.
Other times those lines combine to destroy a life.

An excerpt from a modern Psalter and Lamentation.

Charity and Lamentation
By: Rick Crabtree

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​East Fork:

A Journal of the Arts​​