Not so much brighter but maybe not so dark
Streets of dubious destination lead away
Feigning a rosy road
What harm awaits?
“What doesn’t fill you makes you fonder”
And into the blundering skies did he steer
Chanting
Under grieving stars
And the stripes are uncolored
Unfulfilled destination awaiting contemplation
Or rejection
Slips under the door
The floor being uneven still supports
Hearing rebutting
Retorts he is deafened
But still plunges
To where?
Uncertain direction is behind the wavering
Wistful wanderer
Wondering in blackened practice
“You’ll never throw what they’re stinking”
So get in touch with your peelings
Leaving the dead
Shell behind
And the roots are replanted on the other side of the fence
Where the glass is cleaner and
“The gripes are always slighter at the end of the tunnel”
Fervent impassioned expectancy replaces
The stink of decaying hesitation
Dreams agonize in startled infancy
Past performance pessimistically predicts prospective pain
Quiveringly aware of the odds
Another attempt advances abruptly
Anticipating and accepting abuse
Deciding to rise above the shadows of nurtured pain
Forgetting that “the gin he saved is the gin he earned.”
And stepping bright-eyed into
    the arena of
        Hope
The long-spurned friend of the tortured soul
Learning from well-remembered and re-hashed failure
Yet almost believing in future success
Far away in distant realities lies the goal
But tomorrow is another era
Brighter by much

It was he alone who committed the crime
Fate passed judgment
Hope granted the pardon
Destiny awaits