DAYS OF PENANCE (written with Scott Gordon)

When it all turns gray
and you search in vain
for some mystic analgesic
to heal a broken spirit,
every stranger's optimistic word
becomes an ice-pick,
slammed down hard and anonymously
into the will to proceed
through the grayness
possibly
over the hidden edge,
and the road behind
leads back to a safe haven of familiarity
to which you can never return.

Now, standing alone, mired
in the slow quicksand,
you seek the sun in the fog
and wonder why
all the doors are invisible
and locked.

The sick joke must continue,
you suppose, walls thrown up
for no reason,
and your soul
the punchline

and your own hollow laughter
is but an echo of
your own self wrought
damnation.

Gary Jurechka and Scott Gordon

Feb./Mar. 1999
(Note:This piece is a collaboration between both authors and should be so credited)