LIFELINE OF A CRYPTIC SINNER
Christopher Stolle
memory of the exposed past
when the fits of pain engrossed
every loner without a dime
and then the wind whistled.
but now, as if the sinner died,
that memory reaps more than pain
while the ghosts sweep the closets.
but one cannot understand the sinner
and how he came to be such a fool
so allow me to explain his ordeal:
when William was seven and a half years old
he told his father we wanted to be a lumberjack
and his father just laughed at the lad's desire.
William was a lanky boy, who could barely
carry the kettle into the house for the fire
but his dreams were never created with his
strength in mind because he only wanted to be
a lumberjack, floating down various streams.
when William was 18, and tired of his father,
he took a rifle from the wall and killed him;
why should a man grow up with no support,
he would ask himself as he cried himself to sleep.
William attended his father's cruel funeral
and no one ever knew that he was the killer;
but William's mother knew her son's fate
and within days, the dreamer was in jail.
and he's been there ever since, just dreaming,
of how it would be to be a lumberjack floating
on those logs, dodging river jams and taking
control of his own fate, one he never really had.
