That road to where
Is no way home,
As you roam
Through the open of a broken gate
And wait.
A pause of flicker light
Dances shadows in flight
Across the space
Of the old gray floor
Where once,
There was a door.
Where no new feet have walked
Nor voices talked
Of ordinary times
And little things.
Like Lilac Spring,
An ephemeral thing.
A hot Summer’s, late night fling
Under stormy strife
On the front porch swing.
The hall in Fall
With leaves blown in.
Frozen glass in Winter’s icy ring.
In the modes of life.
No voices talk
In your silent walk,
Making echoes in a ghost’s lock
Of memory.
Up the stairs
Ducking,
Peeling paper
Of garden roses,
In a woman’s caper
Through an imaginary garden of joy.
That banister of a child’s slide
Wobbles weak now,
Broken with a family’s pride.
You wonder how.
Tell me home is in the attic,
Tucked away spirits
In trunks of dust,
Locked with latches of deep red rust
All the treasures of wonder lust.
Sepia captures of Bestefar
Wondering poet, sailor and gypsy
Leaving home, Bestemoer,
Who grew crazed at every start—-
As she secretly sipped,
Growing tipsy
At the end of day.
Over the window pane
Sun rot lace,
Falls
In a rain
Of ruin
Under the eves.
In the back near the rack
Of brittle clothes,
God only knows
Who dropped that old coin.
Tarnished, silver-dollar lost—-
Ya have to smile.
It’s value cost
A shiny penny pile.
There is no guile
In the hope
Of this dreamy interlope.
It’s late past due.
And the broke
Of this old place
Marches along in it’s
Fading pace.
Its fate,
Just a broken gate,
And open door
Where no one lives no more.
m