The lights go out,
The door is locked,
The sign’s been turned
To ‘closed’ —

The streets are
All-but empty now,
The drive is
Unopposed

So many years
Of driving home,
The radio
Your pastime

You never thought
The day would come
You’d lock up for
The last time

But every dream
Both starts and ends,
You’ve struggled to
Stay upbeat

But if you could
Do it again,
You’d do it in
A heartbeat

The lights go out,
The door is locked,
There are new tasks
For tending

Another chapter
Must begin,
Because of this one

Ending

They tell you “life’s a journey,”
But they don’t tell you
How much of it is involuntary.

Of course, it is the journey
Of the earth around the sun that gives us
Our primary awareness of time;
And that, too, is involuntary,
Or at least, unheeding of any
Requests we may have for it to
Speed up or slow down.

Time is just a given,
And it both brings and takes away.
We get a certain amount of time
And we call it “life”.

We never know what may come,
Day to day,
We just deal with things
As best we can.

Life is a journey, indeed;
And while we never know where
The train will stop,
We can at least

Take in the view

I sat there, envying the rays
That got to touch that skin;
I wanted just to talk to her,
Afraid of jumping in —

I had a hundred things to say,
My thoughts were wide and scattered —
But I was twenty-three, and brave
In no real way

That mattered

parenthetic afterglow
apoplectic dairy
halcyon similitude 
carrion to carry 

periscopic panoply
with a touch of colic 
luminescent lullaby
dripping like

a Pollock

I sit out at the park and write.
I hear the distant voices;
A bird is circling the lake
Enjoying all his choices.

A season of indulgences,
A whole new book or folder:
A time for loving summer back,
And not just

Getting older

In struggle and uncertainty
You face the daily storm,
And every form of trouble
Seems to have become the norm —

I know you’ll find your way at last,
A way no one can show you;
You ask why I believe in you —
It’s simple —

‘Cause I know you

Towns made out of fiction,
Pleasures never seen,
Perilous restriction
On the magazine

Showing on the cover
Every little thing:
She was once my lover,
I was once

A king

now a single rose
is set upon the table,

not as a present
nor as an apology,

but out of impulse,
reminded of what days are,

and what nights have been,
because she dwells in this house

and as a symbol
of what i can’t say enough