FINAL STRETCH

I like to think of all the friends the colleagues

except that we're not really friends and colleagues

are we we're more like a family or rather

an orphanage we fought tooth and nail to get into

people always ask 'I'm doing an exercise what's it mean'

'what am I supposed to feel' and you answer 'I dunno

just do it and we'll see' 'yes but is this the right setup

or would it be better to do such-and-such?'

Your reply is 'try and see' otherwise you're programming

There are routines of course and even with all the doubts

they all seem to have something to do with getting closer

to God 'impossible' you think 'far too ambitious for me'

Then you get on with it and time goes by

sometimes a lot of time sometimes not much

without you realizing it a sort of stretching is taking place

sometimes wide or taller sometimes an extra suppleness

An extra calm when you need it most it fits itself in

you can't call it unconscious because you see it happen

or maybe someone else notices 'cos you're too busy working

you stretch yourself into a certain place and shrink back again

When the stretch element is no longer needed Sufidom

is a capacity not a state your special capacity

may become deployed one hour a year or a minute a week

but it's something you cannot fake

Because it didn't just happen as in a fairy tale

there's all the groundwork that took place before

just nobody ever talks about the stretch factor

is what changes bread and butter into caviar

And as you approach the final stretch

you just hope you got it right there's no guarantee

we are a laboratory of humans and all of us

are capable of messing up our own parameters

But when you see yourself stretch and move back into place

before anyone else else noticed and no applause broke out

you more or less know that something happened

that you were at least partially responsible for

ENDGAME

Oh hell Oh God Oh damn

that wasn't the way it was going to happen

oh shit oh fuck oh piss

I was supposed to stand up straight and say I'm not afraid

Like those chess games where you don't just play a person

but against a clock, as well

you never think it's going to be your turn

you go on playing hopscotch in the courtyard

Don't look so worried it's beyond all worry now

I might as well reassure you about a road I never took

but was catapulted down I'll talk about a frame I believe in

and repeat myself ad nauseam until the end of time

I sort of hoped I'd have something novel to say about it

but I go on just as ever One page and four lines

if trust has taken me this far along the path

I'll just have to consider He knows what He's doing

And I do too the saga I'm entering into

was written long ago it's not that I'm so important

just another special agent who disappears in the field

and can't resist another bow as he comes out for curtain call

and catches a glimpse of the public as the story's about to begin