Hannibal, MO
Mark Twain on the brain.
Born here.
Rather a pit.
But, with the North American river that is the zenith of all others
Flowing through
And
The railway.
Methods of escape begetting Huck.
Ways out.
This seems so similar in a way.
A disinterested father.
School, doing well, but to no purpose.
Terminal poverty,
Despite my mind,
Firing blessed neurons unto nothingness.
The way things have gone for a decade now.
A now-felled tree sits at the water’s edge.
The makings of a raft.
An object to take the current to the gulf.
Wood to keep from drowning.
Ah Huck.
Even if not for Jim,
Your plot would still be in floating.
Twain created Finn in his image.
It is the great author himself who must run,
Through the words of the novel.
Or so I imagine
At this riverbank that he personally must have known.
Here, I find that words are binding. They bring life real. They demonstrate the jail unto my soul.
The world can not be worth continued breath.
Yet I inhale
And exhale
With nothing to stop it continuing.
The waterway we call the Mississippi flows on, but no matter my intention, a raft is not built and my transit is not underway. Here, in Hannibal, MO, my life is exactly as it was yesterday; and will be for all foreseeable tomorrows.
Greatness just wasn’t in the cards.