Glass To Glass

A life grown smaller
Measured from glass to glass
Sunny days dimmer now
What horrors new shall pass?
Granpa passed today
The next soft soul rising to a sure heaven
Awaiting the next kickoff
Are we kneeling for our unseen clerk in 7-Eleven?
A chippy bite of merlot
Chartreuse green simmers in our glass
September signals the Fall
What horrors new will pass?
Matriculated on yonder Austin hill
Pray for the new generation
While preen we old and spent—
A history mitered in misty veneration
Are you masqueing this year?
Can’t we just get a pass?
Tiring of this asterisked year—
What new horrors are to pass?

Advertisement

Pas de Deux

Thought I’d write some blasted words
Of young love turned old and grey
And so I put on tangled up in blue
Hoping the muse would come past this away

But not much passes this way anymore
And all my exes eschew my zip code
Sometimes I’ll google a lady of the night
Hoping for just a little love a la mode

But after the passion storm abates
I’m still in Alexandria alone as ever
Maybe I can render this partitioned farce
Into another couplet fierce and clever

Or at least xomething polysyllabic
Or polyphonic to hold onto an AM radio past
So loaded up the merlot into the waiting glass—
Robert Zimmerman is such a blast

And DeGeneres can teach us to love one another
Without guile or an agenda smurfed and pc’d
But then she’s from New Wawlins, fer true—
Let’s squeeze a metaphor and make her bleed

So gel your foreign tense and parle
Come to Lafayette and pas de deux
Just passion danse on a dirt pad acadien—
You know you wanna two-step; yeah you do!

I Need To Think

So I find myself on the far side
Of a failed happily-ever-after—
What happened to all the joy?
Where’s all that guilt-free laughter?

And to all my ever-lovely ones
Who so luckily got quite away:
I wish them all an undying love
From the other who stayed the next day.

But my slice of Confederate heaven
Has grass that could be soon be green;
Once the lingering Summer falls aside
I’ll then look deep between

The choices to that youth resigned,
Incautious, and stupid languidly met—
Always took out the trash and paid the bills,
Dreaming of distant hills and beaches yet:

Words make sad toil to fully tell
Why are we here today?
Lucky, we’re still allowed
To have any part or say—

From A joyous Hard Day’s Night
To The mature Razor’s Edge:
A generation sees in full bright,
But lost is the line for our kedge.

Author Of Quaint Cuteness

So he found his way into the next street bar—
So too many sunsets he’d watched on his own.
He spied an open seat next to suspicion;
He sat: the leatherette surrendered with a groan.
He’d read that other’s fine published work—
Smaller now, he slow-ordered a few subsequent reds;
An author of quaint cuteness in a virtual realm in rhyme;
The rest of his well-bought confidence littered in shreds.
Darkly he found finally his Feng shui front door;
Next time he promised himself to leave on the light.
What’s that cold tightness crawling up his arm?
Her glam memory long ago dimmed from all sight.
Jack meowed hard, his breakfast was kinda late—
The neighbor poured the proper measured morsels into the bowl.
Calls were made, tears will come later, most real, certainly—
The author of quaint cuteness in his virtual realm of howl.

Look Away, Time

Once she was so pretty—
Now she tries to look not so old.
Can you still see her eyes sparkle
Beneath her hair of store-bought gold?
Have you found your one and only?
Hold on with all you’ve got,
Or like those who end up so lonely,
You may forget the grace you were taught.
He used to know so much—
Now he thinks he’s lost his place.
He still loves his son and family
Even though he’s not sure about my face.
Study as hard as you can
And master the skills you need,
But keep a hard eye on Time
Which flies by at a freight train’s speed.
I still think she’s a beauty,
Even with her store-bought hair.
And despite the wrinkles and the crinkles,
I love her; and the rest? I no longer much care.

Another Poet’s Power Trip

7pm Friday evening:
The loner ponders a new blank page;
You’d think he’d have better
At his now advanced presenile age.
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.

7:08pm Friday evening:
Some words managed to flow
Out of prompt sinus gyrae
And across the page, to and fro.
The rhyme lofted well,
The context sufficiently obtuse,
Pondering current lost lovers
[As usual TV fare was of no use].
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.

9:30 Friday evening:
The night’s offering to WordPress Publish—
He’d not edited much,
Twas all a spot of heartache and sly rubbish.

10pm Friday night:
Off went the power strip.
Another headache for morning,
But for now: another poet’s power trip.
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.