The Other Side of Me (a poem)

By Roger Owens















He moved down the sidewalk of 25th Street like a battered little boat, rudderless against a strong current
Bobbing and weaving
Just a little
And I could see the ravages of drink and drugs on his dark, once-noble face, almost Egyptian in countenance
As if Adbel Nasser had gone on a bad bender, his enormous nose seeming to cut the unseen waters
Poorly, unlike his contemporaries,
Who swam in the pounding heat with the grace of fat fish going with the current.
He alone appeared troubled by it, a vessel as surely off course as any plying troubled waters, ever.
And I thanked him
Just a little
Not so much himself, but those others like him
Who had shocked me from my own similar destruction these many years passed.
And I thought how odd, and sad, that some will survive and some perish, and
Would it always be so, some win, some lose? Or
Would there ever come a day when we all
Sailed calm seas into the bright sun?
But no, I decided, of course not. Of course not.

Copyright © 2017 by Roger Owens Roger Owens is an old hippie surfer boy from Brevard County, Florida, a businessman who studied psychology and literature and loves to travel, fish, and read. His hobbies include politics and writing.