a poem is a sermon
The songs that filled my boyhood time are gone, their melodies have faded with the years; and all my vain attempts to sing along have left only their skeletons, and tears. Mere shadows take their place, as mummers’ tunes, their substance lost to darkness and neglect; and now, like worn-down tracings on old runes, they […]
It doesn’t take much to remind me: a trace of perfume in the air lipstick stains on a cigarette butt burning there as much as I tell myself that I don’t care no use lingering on these things now that she’s gone. But sometimes late at night when the traffic is light and the hum […]
I know it’s late and you told me you don’t want me coming ’round But I was in the neighborhood and on my way downtown Thought you’d like to know I saw your memory yesterday He told me to look you up before he’d go away I know that we both agreed we’d be better […]
She said that she was longing for the life that she once had The changes they were coming fast, and some of them were bad Said she could not believe it Maybe she was going mad And I saw just what was happening And I wasn’t much surprised That the laughter was now missing from […]
She with fond memories of elders now gone, & I with my own youth to call back to mind, bought a ten gallon dogwood last year, late in spring (& though maybe later than some would advise for a tree that the hot summer’s swelter might fry, we thought of it grown and the flowers […]
My last post about the hurricanes reminded me of a song that I wrote back when I was in what I might call my Kris Kristofferson phase. I was outlaw country, I guess, and had a lot of friends who were bikers and truck drivers. At the same time, my grandmother was suffering greatly from […]
Spring doesn’t know summer; it’s just risen from the dead. After all that time in winter, it would rather play instead. Spring doesn’t know summer, but it gets there anyway: every stormy April morning leads to afternoon in May. But summer knows the autumn – it can feel it in the breeze; and it dreads […]