Disabled James

Disabled James

Spiders lie on their webs, now idle, watching
the suns go down; they discuss the day's events.
The man and the faithful dog roll in,
but James just looks and longs to live again.

Wooden and rusted, the decor falls and is swept away.
Homeless mice sleep. A different corner, a different night.
The boastful sheep tell of virgin grass elsewhere,
but James just smiles and sighs, he pretends not to care -

As he does now, and will forever.

The prison doors croak a familiar hinged note, sore through age,
(the same as hours and days and years before).
Everyone is safer now, and will not be unnaturally touched, or
change,
for James cannot crash, or bash, or provoke human pain.

He is a dead man, repetition catches his eye - he's going blind.
He is tethered, with a spatial awareness that makes him wish,
that he hadn't killed. That makes him James.
That trapped malevolence, that displeasure, that is self-contained
-

As he is now, and will be forever.