The Idler

A man of soft voice and heart but hard, angry muscle and drive fills my days. He is strong and weak, bent and upright, thin and full of fantasy flights of dreams and visions, me and him, a house, a life, a bed. His hair is dark, peppered grey, and receding, falling from his forehead to feet, carpeting his body like a coat. Persistent and patient, he with stuttering voice, whispery, shattered and deep, a boy-man of broken childhood, keeps close from afar, runs to me in the gaps, and sprays urgency over me; he is like a vibratory hummingbird at my ear, the wing flutter always flapping near, perceived unseen. He has too much time to think of me and a future. I lean left and right. We share loneliness and time wasted, a lifetime of near misses, music and art, politics, people watching and the idleness of directionless desire and aims. Transitions are either near approach to the top of the Ferris wheel or just over the top slide to the bottom again. They test sure footing, roots, grounding, toppling over with the weight of uncertainty or standing tree firm to the skies while the bark is bitten, flaked off. I am a sleeping sandwich, breaded to face the holy heavens equally to the wormed earth. Can you wake me, man of manic mind and heart?