Whole of the Remains

I have become the mistress
of all burden things.
The shadow that lurks,
even when all suns have set.

I am the loathsome child,
With brittle hands,
Soiled cheeks.

I have become like sharp half notes,
ruining a song with
vacant phrasing of manhood,
never having known the boy
inside.

I have become the old man
Sitting on dank porches
deep in the Mississippi Delta
in the blistering heat,
fingering decayed remnants of
sugar cane.
Forgotten, desperate.

I have become the mouth
With no voice.
The song with no melody.
The smile with no laugh behind it.

I am staccato
and uproariously foolish.
I am empty,
with no place to dip my cup.

I have become gone.
I am old brittle leaves dusted up onto
some quaint roadside
Full of peace but,
Dead.

Sing no songs for me.
None jubilant or easy.
None holy or to angels.
Cast me down,
like old dead crops
like men do old whores.

Leave me out to rot.
I have become the detritus you avoid.
Some thing moved away from all
good
things.

I am eighth notes,
in a long melody,
With only whispered phases of manhood,
never having known the boy
inside.

Jason Christopher Johnson
February 9, 2012