Nothing Left to Grasp

Nothing Left to Grasp
By David Avila

they see me again
-I know they don't care
~but outside of all this
they look in and peer through the blinds
exacting their gaze on a man who doesn't care
doesn't trick or toss or lose or gain

no hope for the frictionless work at play
to pretend and not be what you could
~but to know yourself as a playful charge of execution
action
the show goes on
the boy plays not but to sing a song no one else can hear

-yet what comes out are only
the sounds
the sounds
the sounds
~of one who knows not to sing when the time is right
to not care and not take away what isn't theirs

keep it
-it's yours
and let go what's mine
stay with you
what's mine will stay with me

~to entice the rivers to flow
not all my way
but in the right hands thoughts to bemuse even the most arduous of paths
go
go on
~go on and see to it that the sun stretches from one side to the other
a body of work not pushed to its limits
but unable to be stretched further
-beyond where it could go before

watch
watch and listen and let it unfold with nothing in your hands
nothing to hold onto
nothing left to grasp