I would wax poetic if it meant my skin turned white

Walk down the street not worried that I might

Cast a shadow but Sandman said “Checkmate”

My king tumbled off of the worn out board

Landed with a thump on the living room floor

“Long live the dream! The king’s no more!”

Yelled Sandman as he hopped onto the sofa

 

He then pointed at me and said

“Look at you, you think so far ahead

You become afraid to move

No queen. No bishop.

So you must be the fool.”
I wondered how this man could never rest

“I might have a queen but time is the test”

“Oh,” he replied, “luck be to the rover

Though, knowing you, it’s already over.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I asked, straightening up

He rolled his eyes

“Little hardy boy doesn’t know he’s a fuck up?”

 

He did not have to tell me twice. I knew my station

A man of nowhere is but an abomination.

My skin is the colour of the earth

I don’t want people walking all over it like it’s dirt

 

“Tut tut” went Sandman, “Boy, for someone

Who claims to be a poet, you’re playing with the words wrong

A man of nowhere could be a man of anywhere

So why do you chase your tail like a cub who’s scared?”

 

“Is it not the same thing? I can’t point to the start

I’m afraid it ends in the same nothingness

That it’s all some great farce

That God’s laughing in a chair somewhere

Wine spraying out his nose

Doubling over when he hears that all I want to know

Is if life’s about topography or altitude

I heard you can’t get into heaven with priors

Is that another joke or is it true?
And if we are here to serve time

How are sentences revoked?

And what’s the whole deal with the idea

That only the universe knows

That the universe conspires in weird wild ways

If you meet the universe, tell it to step out of my way

‘Cause if you ask me, I think the universe is a sadist

For always tearing me away from all my happy places”

 

Sandman tittered

“This is entertaining

I could say life is what you make it

But that’s an old saying

We need something fresh

Something titillating

Let me ponder

Continue what you were saying.”

 

He crossed his legs as I reckoned with my head

Was I fighting for the wrong things

Did I not know it yet?

For all my rage at a drunken god and the conspiring

They did introduce me to the mighty high of flying

But why give a kid a taste if it is just to tease?

I’m trying to tune into into her station

But I got the wrong frequency

And maybe Sandman’s right

Maybe I can own the road

And maybe a couple miles down

I’ll have a working radio

I just don’t know if I can start in the middle

Everything up to now reads like one big riddle

It feels like I’ve been riddled

I’m trying to fill in the holes

Pack it in. Pack it up. Ready. Set. Go.

 

When I’m six feet deep

Or lit up high

What will I leave behind?

A legacy of ruins, a couple jottings

In the fridge

Half a tub of Baskin-Robbins?

And what will I get to take with me?

All I can think of is a VHS

Or Baudelaire’s poetry

 

“I got it!” he said

Eyes full of glee

He beckoned me over

And whispered to me