Don't Lay Away Your Todays for Tomorrow

Don't lay away your todays for tomorrow.
See Paris when you're young.  Fall in love there.
Rent a gondola on the Grand Canal,
Climb above the clouds to Machu Picchu,
Take time off to find yourself if you need to.
Wander a quiet wood or walk the shore
Of a sun-catching lake on a May day,
Or just sit in a park and feed the squirrels.

The "boss," the punch clock, the unfulfilling tasks
All become shackles that render us "wage slaves."
Working towards those ends may be virtuous
To some, usually the employers who peddle
That line, but most of us who pursue our dreams
Discover that the prize that we've desired
Has eluded our grasp or has been wrested from us,
Rendering our lives  exercises in futility.

When you visit a nursing home, "listen."
Mournful sobs plunge past despair's deepest depth
Into realms of more pitiless sorrow.
Wretched warehoused souls who wait upon death
Can never forget, and most deeply regret, .
Having laid away their yesterdays for today.

A Lingering Taste of Sadness

When I came to drink from the well of life
It left a lingering taste of sadness
Regrets cling stubbornly to my thoughts
Like lichen does to a dull gray stone.
Rumination upon unattained dreams,
Reflection upon unfufilled ambitions,
Obsessively one-sided infatuation,
Desire that never blossomed into love.
It's taken me too long to realize
That there's no rich vein of gold here,
No coal with its diamond potential,
Just a weathered, pitted, glacier-scarred stone
That's too often taken for granite.

The ancient ones left us strange petroglyphs;
Cryptic messages chiselled into stone,
Undecipherable, irretrievable knowledge.
I feel cheated when I look at their carvings.
There's so much I should understand by now
Given the lessons that I've had to absorb;
So many mistakes I could've learned from.
But when I drank deeply from the well of life
It left me with the bitter disappointment
Of that lingering taste of sadness.

The Spoon Diner Trilogy

Hash-House Annie

Dropped off at an orphanage as an infant,
I never had a real family.
I began work here when I turned sixteen,
Learning to dismiss Lucius Atherton's advances
With a wink, a joke and a smile.
I was holding out for "Mr Right,"
But he never showed up.
Soon I became accepted as "The Waitress;"
The early morning farmers and their hands
Or the noon banker, lawyer and merchant crowd
Felt free to continue talking business
With me hovering over them, pouring coffee,
Bringing their food, clearing their dishes.
Eventually I learned enough about them
To worry about their health, their work
And to follow the lives of their children.
My regulars became the family I never had.
I put on weight over time.  Our food was good.
Forty-six years into my job here,
I sat down to take a load off my feet
And my heart gave out.
The last words I remember hearing were...

"Say Annie  When you're up and moving again
Would you mind freshening up my coffee?"

Fry-Cook George

For years I labored over the grill,
Almost as long as Annie,
My head down, my back turned to you all.
I took some good-natured ribbing about it.

"How come we never get to see your homely face?"

"That's George's way.  He's a just a bit anti-social."

When it came to their breakfast or lunch though
They were content to "Let George do it."
The truth is, every day of my God-cursed life
My mind trembled with the secret dread
That someone who knew me from St. Louis
Would stop here to eat, get a glimpse of my face,
And remember me as that young college student
Who let liquor go to his head one evening,
Flexed his muscles in a bar fight, and fled,
Leaving the body of a friend on the barroom floor.

That's why I always stood at the grill,
My back to you all and my head bowed.
My companions were the fear that held me
In a grip that any constable would envy,
And my ever-present shame.

Gerta Sundvik

I owned the diner where George and Annie worked.
I'd come in and help out during the noon rush,
But for the most part they did a good job for me.
Their labor made us all a good living.
I was lucky enough to get to stay home,
Baking my pies for the noon lunch crowd
Or canning fresh fruit to use during the winter.
I'd work on a quilt for the church bazaar
Or read my Bible during my spare hours.
I prayed for both George and Annie to come to Jesus
But could never talk either into joining me in church.
Annie always said that she was "too tired;"
George just hung his head like he always did
And mumbled that he just didn't belong there.
They were good people though, despite all that.
May our merciful Savior touch them with forgiveness
And open the gates of his Paradise to them.

The Loneliness of Injun Joe

It's time to retreat again,
To scuttle spiderlike back into
The most private recesses
Of cognative reflection.
In these caverns of conscious thought
These are the rooms that I rarely visit.
Here my darkest secrets lay suppressed.

In this netherworld of self-recrimination
I'll seek refuge in the soul salving
Withdrawal into solitude.

Here I tread upon recollection
Crushed into layers of sentiment
As I weave a disillusioned path through
The sedimental strata of my past.

At the end of this labyrinth of memory
My torch illuminates
The experiences that I've examined,
That I've reshaped into a mythology of self.
Chalk, iron powder, charcoal and berries
Crushed to use to create wierd scenes,
A strange tableaux of cave paintings
That quiver to life in the flickering light.

Here I'll dig through the silt of forgetfulness
To unearth images that I've long suppressed,
That I've wrapped and buried like Kachina dolls
In this, the holiest sanctuary of my soul.

This is the place where I hide aspects of self
That I don't wish the world to see.
A refuge from my wife, my son,
My friends and my parents.
I've locked out all humanity.

Is it perverse of me to retreat,
To withdraw deep into myself,
To compartmentalize my life,
To play Bartleby in such a selfish way
When I've got people who love me?

Loneliness is the damp musty smell
Of brackish water, of our despair
As we weave our way, blind as cave-fish
Through the dark stream that we call "life."

When I finally tire of poring through
My pathetic cache of regrets
By the dimming light of this dying candle,
Will I be able to roll away the stone barrier
That seals this entrance to my cave.

Christ, I'm not.

I'm more like Tom Sawyer's Injun Joe;
Trapped in darkness, thirsty and hungry,
Shut away from the mass of mankind,
Condemned to licking moisture
From the damp walls of my cave,
That false promise of liquid solace that
Leaves just sand and grit on one's tongue.

As my last candle gutters into blackness,
I stand alone in this cold musty room
That's become my silent tomb.

As I bellow my frustrated loneliness
At  indifferent walls,
They only echo my impotent anger
Back at me, taunting me
To cut loose with yet another

Primal scream.

Fort Pillow Trilogy (Three Spoon River Poems)

Caleb the Bartender

You never cared where I'd come from, Spoon River,
Just so long as I kept your glasses full.
As you guzzled your beer or sipped your whiskey
You confided in me, you asked my advice
As though I was your Father Confessor,
More in tune with the Holy than with spirits.
You fools!  You know as little of truth as I did
Before battle laid bare the evil of my soul.
Could you look into my heart and view my sins
As I've had to, you'd recoil from me in horror.
I did so from myself, fleeing  here from Memphis
With a new last name, hoping to run from my past.
It met me at the railroad station though,
And laid the crime of murder at my feet.
It was at that moment that I realized
That there was no earthly place where I could hide
From the shame of what I'd done at Fort Pillow.
I resigned myself to a slow suicide of spirit,
Pouring drinks, dispensing advice, and at night
Returning home to drink myself into a stupor
That drove everything away but my guilt.

Varina Devereaux

I was so proud when my Caleb enlisted.
To ride with Bedford Forrest; how romantic!
My beloved a dashing Southern cavalier,
A warrior poet, my own Sir Phillip Sydney!
What tales he would weave from his adventures!
But when he returned his muse had scorned him.
Her lodgings were now squatted in by shame
And a self-loathing that clung to his spirit
Like Spanish moss dripping from a gnarled oak.
He tried to tell me of a place called "Fort Pillow;"
Of men driven mad by hatred and blood-lust,
Of curses and snarled rage brutally punctuated
With gunshots and thrusts of blood-soaked bayonets.
I tried everything.  I held him in my arms.
I told him that it didn't matter, that the war was over,
That they were only thieving Yankee niggers
Who deserved what they got for invading our land.
Nothing that I could do or say could console him.
I sadly watched as he drifted out of my life
On a sullen dark sea of despair.

Jefferson Brown

For years my mind smouldered with bitterness,
Its hot coals glowing with resentment,
Blazing into anger when someone called me "Nigger."
I'd think of the rebel devils who'd killed my boy,
Shooting him in the head as he lay helpless
Begging for mercy in the name of their God too.
But when Mr. Caleb had hired me to help him
Lug his bulky trunk from the train station
To that lonesome little room that he'd just rented,
We both got to talking some.
When I told him of my son's death at Fort Pillow,
His face paled as though he'd just seen the hoodoo
That folks say makes its home in Jackson's Swamp.
His eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his head
And whispered "I'm sorry," as though he were Jesus
Reaching down to take upon himself the blame
For the sins of Forrest and his pack of animals.
After that, every so often I'd step out
Onto my porch to find a sack of groceries
Or a bottle of whiskey set next to my door.
I don't know what brought you to Spoon River,
Mr. Caleb, but your sympathy and kindness
Severed the bonds of hatred that had bound my soul.
May God bless you, and may he wrap you in
The all-forgiving comfort of his love.

Which Regret Will Become Your Cancer Cell?

The chance you didn't take; the move you wouldn't make
The rage you couldn't quell;  a fear that made life hell;
A life-changing mistake; a heart you caused to ache;
The wage you didn't make; the thirst you couldn't slake.

Which regret will become your cancer cell?

The fling you never flung; the song you left unsung;
On which of these dashed dreams will your mind darkly dwell?
Wedlock's binding ties that too soon became unstrung
Or the "I love you" that died on the tip of your tongue.,

Which regret will become your cancer cell?

The poem you didn't write; the foe you failed to fight;
The setback you befell; the truth you dared not tell;
Some unforgiven slight; the wrong you wouldn't right;
Which of these will on your soul cast its blight?

Which regret will become your cancer cell?

Perhaps the friend in need that you failed to assist.
Of dark thoughts that lay seige to your mind's citadel
Such as lips never kissed; opportunities missed;
Which blunder will ball into a malignant cyst?

Which regret will become your cancer cell?