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Stephen Saddler
Just A Wandering Star
As we walk alone,
looking at the ground
Does anyone see us,
in this cold, lonely town?
The eyes that don’t see us,
even tho’ they stare.
A dumpster for dinner
A bridge for a home
A great crowd of people
Yet we’re still all alone.
So onward I travel,
I wonder how far
A curse born forever
under a wandering star.
Stephen Llewellyn Sadler
Nov. 19th. 1955 - Nov. 23rd. 1995
My friend wrote this and it was found
in his possession after he took his own life.
He was street people and a dear friend of 14 years.
* * *
Omission
he
wasn’t just a star a solo
tragedian yet his omission would
cause very little if anything at all because
the great eye of the universe wrapped in self
would keep spinning in her chaotic spectrum
the great eye expressed little of stopping her
whirling will you'll just dizzy when your
getting off he never cared for my
flowers or child's play so
what's one star in a
night filled sky the eye of
the universe will sing one silly
drunken song of his long lost daz of a
wandering life of one who hated dialogue
yet loved the pure morning glories while in
their closing lights leaving hasn’t altered
that he was just a tonically drunken
scant star and stars too die daily
life times away in passing
who we’ll never
know
so in the
night the eye stated
as she spun in her confusing
orbit that is me and that is life and
this is what eye call deaths sympathy
and so went out that night in a brazen
blaze, then nothing, his light simply
subsided, now he’s truly just a
wandering star a tiny star
so far away why is it
yon lights have
becalm so
dark.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Sobering Cold
In his mid late
forties a face seasoned and torn corroded
layers of clothing threadbare and worn runs to a meal
it’s a soup line he knows then off into night to a place where
he goes on the boulevards of borough walk the voracious and
weak finding only the snow some shelter they seek though
beds have been taken spaces forsaken so nights in
cold crevices he’s currently facing in dark
dilemma he huddles and thinks of
home wrapped in a news
paper on sharp rock
and stone as he lay
so silent watching and still
once in awhile to quiver aloft a cold
winters chill I couldn’t help but ponder
how people young and old are asleep
and still so alone draped in silver
winters shivering tomb.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Stephen’s Story
Times were hard for the street people that year it was very cold, snowy
and drear. The apartment complex that I’d been managing had a one
room basement where I allowed Steven a place to lay his head. He spoke
with a heavy southern drawl and had told he was born in Mississippi, no
doubt it was the truth. His favorite words were “ya all’s” which laced every
sentence he spoke. He was a terrible drunk, but a wonderful non-violent,
nature-loving friend. But one very large church
allowed him to chef their yearly
Thanksgiving dinner for the street/bridge people. He did that for a number of years
(truly it was the highlight of his world and brought meaning to his life)
until that last particular year when the church decided to tell him he would not
under any circumstances be the chef that year unless he stopped drinking.
He tried so hard too but he just couldn’t stop. So just a few days after his birthday
and as you can see, one day before Thanksgiving he took his life.
It caused no small stir in the church which was the biggest in town.
Many members quit attending. It made the front page news, not really him... but the church.
They took away his one reason for living and with that... he decided he was
no longer needed and the world could do without him... and he took his life.
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