Clock

Wound hands tick neither fast nor slow

Moments bubble and recede with seen inevitability

Splashing the decks of my rational being

On and on the tock will flow endless as all can be

I am a mere steerage passenger on this grand voyage

Alone in the realization that time stands tall  

Dividing experience into corrugated half truths

The fruits still spill in the evening chorus of calamity

That confronts such a listless vessel

Every morning may rise with a mist

Carved with swollen eyes the sun will set

Judged to be joyless this existence traces circular

Around and around I absentmindedly foil the pockets

Those soggy instants of self-taught harmonization

That drop actualized thought beneath the layer time.   

Prince Street

Down Jamaica Plain way he took us one morning

The avenues were lined with pluming trees

Green with the season their branches shadowed the sun

It was my first time in this part of the city

Somehow I thought it had all been a bit more impoverished

What an idealist I am

This middle class village gave me a sigh

On the way out the squares seemed endless

Names like Harvard and Copley

Now on his street the trees still hung as they might

Protectors of his lost youth

Number nine was unremarkable

He had me park a short distance away

The names and years rolled from his tongue

Unfurling tales of his mysterious youth

On and on the tales spun

So and so lived there

The pond ice was checked by horses

Your great aunt lived there

After a spell he hushed and I put it in drive

Slowly our vehicle cruised past

My son in the back waved at the house

I turned to my father and nodded.