GraybeardGhost
Well-known member
Here's a little darkness to brighten your day. It's what happens when a guy like me reads the personal ads on craigslist. Comments welcome.
Quandary
It is late, this hour of the day,
this day of the year,
this year, but one of many years
in something like a life.
It's late—so very late.
So many days and years already spent,
so many hours sacrificed,
(Upon what stone?)
their ashes swept away.
(By what ill wind?)
Now only wisps of smoke remain
to shape a pallid graybeard ghost,
who lingers in this shadowed cave
to haunt himself with all the grief
and horror of those immolated days.
Is it too late, this hour of the day?
(How late is that?)
Is he too old, this mournful, drifting soul?
(How old is that?)
Will there indeed be time,
or is this lonely path a one-way street,
with all the signposts pointing to decline?
Is it too late for youth to clasp
the hand of wasted middle age,
to stir some remnant spark to life,
and shake the shadows from the shade?
I wonder: where do shaken shadows go?
Don't ask the ghost. It's late. He'll never know.
It is late, this hour of the day,
this day, this week, this month,
(Is it August or December?)
this unexpected outrage of a year.
It's late—so awfully late.
(Is it afternoon or evening?)
(Is it time for joy or grieving?)
It is time he should be leaving
this dismal crypt, yet here he stays.
His whiskers hang like Spanish moss,
this faded phantom, grayer every hour,
and substance soon reverts to smoky haze.
Reluctant synthesis of squandered days,
our somber spirit ends as he began:
a castoff relic of another age,
an antiquated echo of a man.
.
Quandary
It is late, this hour of the day,
this day of the year,
this year, but one of many years
in something like a life.
It's late—so very late.
So many days and years already spent,
so many hours sacrificed,
(Upon what stone?)
their ashes swept away.
(By what ill wind?)
Now only wisps of smoke remain
to shape a pallid graybeard ghost,
who lingers in this shadowed cave
to haunt himself with all the grief
and horror of those immolated days.
Is it too late, this hour of the day?
(How late is that?)
Is he too old, this mournful, drifting soul?
(How old is that?)
Will there indeed be time,
or is this lonely path a one-way street,
with all the signposts pointing to decline?
Is it too late for youth to clasp
the hand of wasted middle age,
to stir some remnant spark to life,
and shake the shadows from the shade?
I wonder: where do shaken shadows go?
Don't ask the ghost. It's late. He'll never know.
It is late, this hour of the day,
this day, this week, this month,
(Is it August or December?)
this unexpected outrage of a year.
It's late—so awfully late.
(Is it afternoon or evening?)
(Is it time for joy or grieving?)
It is time he should be leaving
this dismal crypt, yet here he stays.
His whiskers hang like Spanish moss,
this faded phantom, grayer every hour,
and substance soon reverts to smoky haze.
Reluctant synthesis of squandered days,
our somber spirit ends as he began:
a castoff relic of another age,
an antiquated echo of a man.
.
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