Poetry                            
Pocket

    by locks, shadows and candles

 

the empty scrapbook  

left alone in                 

corner overlooked,     

binding broken.         

 

in that corner, memories so long mocked    

in that left room behind rusted lock.      

 

a future once mistook,         

dreamt in that dusty book     

 

missing always from its meant mantle     

hidden by locks, shadows and candles. 

 

try as we might, the candle won’t light

 

a slow-burn start   

for desperate spark,   

a quick-lit dream,   

slipped in between     

 

solid hands striking the struck matches    

on fixed wicks and yet, no flame catches  

​

all our wrongs right, the candle won’t light

 

in the unkept room the cool candle handled by others      

only casts a shadow that covers                     

and covers

and covers    

 

walking in that constant shadow     

of the stale, old-empty sorrow       

speed walking on to a farther   

and farther, better tomorrow   

 

still accepting fluorescent attempts   

still graciously, with veiled contempt  

 

an unfulfilling,         

“god willing . . . “    

an on last-nerve,                         

“you two deserve . . .”                 

 

hard as we fight, the candle won’t light

 

no more  playing the odds  

no more  praying for god’s   

 

no more  hope-trick due date. 

no more  pinprick heartbreak.   

 

all this born with a broke-leash determination   

finally falls away with a face-slap resignation          

 

cry in the night, the candle, it just . . .  it will not light

 

the twisted accord of life’s stock     

now cruelly spent        

now breaks against       

the weathered rust of that sad lock        

so withered by that gamble’s     

last bet, to wit,                 

in the shadow of a candle         

as yet, unlit.