Orange pumpkins. They smile through their teeth.
Nightmarish gnomes and transient homes are the memories.
Once again, more than a score of years come and gone,
the wrinkled kitchen curtains are unpacked and hung.
The radio-phonograph, encased in a three-foot high
mahogany console is on the fritz. Console yourself
with coloring books, "Baby Snooks" is dead and gone.
The graveyard, overrun with wildflowers, will pollinate
in the rush of Spring, and proliferate all Summer long.
To the warmth of Autumn, give thanks for the pumpkin,
its coat the color of sun, setting on familiar streets.
Just down the block, Act One begins. With head erect,
the legs straighten and we stand amidst the cracked
plaster and peeling paint in the House that Jack built.
Friends who've shared your bread and sorrow.
The one or two who've shared a fireplace.
Older generations that have touched you.
And newer generations that touched back.
Dieties with whom to make peace.
And demons with whom to settle scores.
There is a gritty humor in that last good-bye,
a rough-hewn acquiescence in passage
when one leaves behind imprints and traces.
All else that smacks of self-importance or
self-congratulation are but self-delusion,
just whistling in the wind, in the dark.
running races without start, finish, or direction
waiting for happening: unknown quantities
singing a Nashville tune, dancing a Motown dance
buying times in nickels and dimes.
wearing out stretch rayon welcomes, putting on
fibre-filled false fronts, stripping off
bark like so much hand-me-down integrity
shedding the other side of pretense.
listening for fixes in three-quarter time
wearing off, veneers of meaning melt and
curved lines straighten out, the music
falls through cracks in wood floors
and out of windows scarcely open.
what are you waiting for? another frantic walk
on the high wire, this time, ending in applause?
a wake up call, that comes just in the nick of time?
or the same, slow, circular descent into the flames?