Like a Squirrel on a Wheel

I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words... interpreted everything in a bad light... and in the midst of my laughing, I'd give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again - in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I was standing by the vending machine

at five in the morning,

coffee tasting like rusted pipes,

when I remembered some fellow saying

he used to take himself apart

thread by thread -

studying every glance folks gave him

like it was evidence in a trial.

Man.

If I had time for that

I wouldn’t make it past Tuesday.

He said he’d measure smiles,

weigh a handshake,

turn a harmless word over in his mind

like a mechanic staring at a stripped bolt

trying to see what went wrong with the metal.

And then he’d laugh at himself

for trying to be like everybody else,

only the laugh would break

halfway through

and turn into sadness.

Round and round he’d go.

Like a squirrel on a wheel.

Now I’ve seen squirrels -

fat little hustlers

running the telephone wires

like they own the electric company.

But even they

jump off eventually.

Meanwhile this poor philosopher

is still circling the inside of his skull,

checking every look someone gave him in 1847

like it’s still on the time clock.

Brother, listen...

down here where the boots hit concrete

and the day starts before the sun

we got other arithmetic.

You carry the box.

You tighten the bolt.

You eat the sandwich.

A man frowns at you?

Maybe his back hurts.

Maybe his kid’s sick.

Maybe the world is just heavy today.

Not everything is a poem

or a wound

or a mirror held up to your soul.

Sometimes it’s just Tuesday

and the truck is late.

So if I catch myself

starting that same foolish spinning -

wondering what that look meant,

why that laugh sounded crooked -

I do the sensible thing.

I step off the wheel.

Stretch my shoulders.

Finish the coffee.

And let the squirrels

and the philosophers

keep running their circles

in the quiet machinery

of their magnificent heads.

GBS jr

1988