blue tattoo

rainbow colored thoughts
the man with the intricate tattoo
must have had some muscle to show
sometime in the perhaps not too distant past
today he sits on a rotten bench and remembers the day
when pain used to be one step away
from pleasure, when he laughed thinking that
his body has become a piece of art
today he thinks that the piece of blue art
may have the power to keep him young.
pain comes more often to visit his body
they have known each other for a long time;
he himself looks no more artistic
than that old twisted branch
that he can crush with his foot under the bench;
the blue color turned towards gray
but when he half closes his eyes
the tattoo that he sees stays
on a healthy piece of skin
of a twenty years old
dreaming to become a marine.

the future has past by us
we have been left in the present
forever - as young as we think we are
the only chance we have left
is to carefully plan the present
we will see at dawn