during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment
and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.
“what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.” I have used this quote for loved ones going though something difficult.
I can almost imagine him writing in the last part of the poem about him walking on the floor with his feet bleeding because he accidentally walked through shards of broken glass from the empty bottles of beer that he failed to throw in the trash can…(as he narrated more than once in his stories) But then again, that’s life irrespective of all the complaining that we might have… CB will always be among my favourite writers!