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Hours Pass So Slow In The Day
The hours pass so slow in the day
Then decades are gone in a flame
Y’all, hold your lovers a little longer
While you can still remember their name
Forever lasts before end of the day
Then forty years have gone just like that
Y’all, hold your lovers a little tighter
Before you die and get laid out down flat
Our lives read out in poems half writ
With or without a dear someone with which to care
Y’all, hold your lovers a whole lot closer
Make sure it’s with you the time they want to share
The hours pass so slow in the day
Then decades are gone in a flame
Y’all, hold your lovers a little longer
While they still care to remember your name
Forgiving Father Marvelous
Moving down the page
At an acceptable change of pace,
We were so kind of in love,
Though I seem to have misplaced her face.
But I’m sure she was brunette
And possessive of wit and lust,
But like most of my choices
It all kinda went for spit and bust.
So here I write Saharan poetry—
Dry and empty as this Austin life.
Hoping better for the kid unit;
Truth oft separates like a steak fat knife.
No, no deep answers here:
Just marooned on the less traveled.
Awaiting that unadorned underbox
Overlaid in Southern granite that’s neatly marbled.
Several Paces Past
Several paces past
The beginning and the end,
Comes the space wherein
We like to try it all over again;
Unsay that awful
Which was sorely said;
Get up earlier
And make the stupid bed.
Say goodbye later
And just hang a minute more or two;
Maybe life could be better,
Not this evermore darkening in blue.
Leavening choices cast
Between the close and over there,
We can render a space therein
We can go for the Happy rather than old soggy despair.
Yes, I do agree!
No, that doesn’t make you fat!
Please, of course I’ll wait for you—
You like me? Well, imagine that!
Life’s Not as Easy as a Cajun Dance
Einaudi lingers on the stereo
As burnt chicken wafts thru the door
Happiness takes its turn to go
The reason why matters not any more
I’d give anything for one more chance
But life’s not as easy as a Cajun dance
Tomorrow will be a lesser day
Twas oft told to watch what you say
The cat wants to so go outside
As paltry aromas scale thru a crack
Nuances are things I could never abide
And now she is another you’ll never get back
I’d give anything for just one more walk
But life’s much more than marbles and chalk
Dawn comes so early in the day
The sooner you’ll be off one might say
The keyboard rings out its golden tune
Time to drain a merlot glass quick
Bedtime approaches too ready and ever soon
Cat calls his return with condescension thick
Lonely and longing lie buried deep and strong
Life’s losses are worse when you know you’re wrong
Tomorrow will be another lesser day
A fresh curtain for any farce or threadbare play
Cordially
The light is failing
As are my eyes;
Put away all those becauses
That came with you lies.
Cordially,
We’d wet the drain;
I’m not all that sure
I ever want to see you again.
The year is ending,
As is my sentence down here.
How far to the river’s bend
And all that southern good cheer?
Smartly,
Stay in Kalamazoo:
A reunion in Cyprimont
Is all I will need of you.
My glass is empty
Just like my heart;
Were we really all over
Right from the start?
Love In Reverse
Clad in regret
And coif’ed in despair,
Another day has passed—
You, uncalled by the phone by the chair.
Cobwebs adorn all
My old dreams forlorn;
The rains did fall,
And refreshed, the pasture of the lost awaits the morn.
Wick wagging,
A candle mocking—
Here, the only flame that burns
Lights a keyboard click clocking.
Poet bent double,
Love in reverse.
Is the regret or the rhyme
Which tarries for the worse?
The Granite, The Bouquet, and The Sad
The light followed the star over the hill
As the fog rolled in with the cold
Twas a different kind of Christmas story
At least as far as I remember what I was told
A deep abiding affection afflicted the old man
And finally had the means to fulfill a promise
And many, many lonely miles he did trudge to deliver
A last bouquet of daisies to lay before his one fair miss
In younger, luckier days our man had paid fervent troth
To she who now dwelt in yon granite sarcophagus,
But a wrong spoken word had ended it all forever;
Such a piteous loss as to be endured by any one of us.
But our Vanity is a grievously jealous mistress;
And he could not, would not forgive, the slight by his true love.
Such tragedy our old man had scripted in a cold bile ink,
Disparaging of her and placing his wounded veil above.
Carole, the second beauty born of Marble Falls
On one lank Christmas Day between the great wars,
Loved above all Nature’s beauties the blue daisy—
She would fill her Mother’s pots, trestles, and jars.
Silas, our poor fool from a far crescent city east,
Would bring bouquets of blue daisies to ply his troth,
And won her heart, and a date sure was firmly set—
What could possibly set aside such as this Love’s oath?
A sorry, sad mistake came to undo our lover’s story:
Carole observed unartfully our Silas over harsh tone:
As blasted to the quick, Silas cast off his cheery mantle,
And demanded keenly by Carole to be left forever alone!
Oh, Silas! One word passed without art has chilled thee so?
And bereft of her future, our shaken Carole turned to leave.
Only alone, later in his poor ivory tower of hot wind and pride
Would he see his error and allow himself to grieve.
Carole, the second beauty born of Marble Falls,
Would later, at last, marry fairly well, if not too grand.
Silas, alone, tended to his vanity and found old age,
But twas Carole to first find her final rest at Death’s hand.
Silas, hearing of Carole’s passing, fell slow to his knees
And swore a prideless oath to take every Christmas Day,
In honor of Carole, his cast-off joy, a last birthday gift:
A simple arrangement in a pristine blue daisy bouquet.
The light faded over the hill after the star found its new home.
The old man had placed his bouquet when his heart beat its last.
The fog blanketed the granite and the bouquet and the sad.
Is loneliness the grand prize for a wrong word lost to the past?
Not all Christmases are all tinsel and cheer—
Silas and Carole speak to us in more mature themes.
Please, this Yule, find it inside you to forgive and forget
Or woe may scuttle your fonder, finer, future dreams.
[Shikoba]
Kitt
pueriles 