A poem I wrote over Thanksgiving, 2015.
One writes a page – she’s got it down:
comes back to it when back in town,
picks just the words to earn her crowns,
make pages come alive.
His songs embrace this tuning more:
if ever they become a bore
the next performance, change the score,
and melody, it thrives.
Our houses we build brick by brick.
We paint the walls until they’re thick –
so filled with things that make us tick
and with our pretty wives.
We learn this from an early age
Each actors on our private stage,
won’t settle for what’s on the page-
to mend scripts we’ll contrive.
And so I take this talent learned
(to craft the things for which I’ve yearned,
by force of will wrest gold I’ve earned)
and lift myself I strive.
But twisting talent inward’s hard
For me today (no piece of art)
and me of ere are miles apart,
and living different lives.
And me anon will differ still.
“Turn that-a-way,” says prior will.
But past dreams will the future kill,
when this-a-way fate drives.
Worst thing is that it’s me on me.
We’re eye-to-eye where neither see –
conjoinéd twins in sinking sea
not one alone survives.
Still, raise ourselves, we all do try.
Forever twisting, till we die.
We stain our cheeks, so much we cry,
our chests break out in hives.
See! Stuck we are, in games we play:
to prove ourselves, to win one day,
that never shall we fade away
when reaper, he arrives.
Yet seeing that we’re in the mire,
pinned in this game of great desire,
in chasing dreams, we lie, conspire,
is not the key, per se.
It’s not like some forgotten spell
that will when read, the dragon fell.
Not sure it even “does us well,”
For fate’s a winding way.
Instead it’s like that draught of wine,
the first one ‘fore we sit to dine
that hits us quick and calms the mind
and makes us like to play.
It slows us, like a night’s last dance –
two lovers, cobbled street in France.
The twisting heightens the romance:
sweet music we obey.
This constant contrast underneath
(when mind is put back in its sheath)
in wonder rounds us like a wreath.
Naught else to do but sway.
So be yourself, how can you not?
But easy when you miss a shot,
for hit or miss, all go to rot
when night o’ercomes the day.
And drink deep of that draught of wine
the first one ‘fore you sit to dine
that hits you quick and calms the mind
and makes you like to play.
Copyright 2015. Cecil Charles McCumber. All rights reserved.
