oregonnerd: differing views

elegy

April 24, 2018 at 2:25 pm Leave a comment

elegy

old poet, you
who strive to teach me, i
can tell you miss
your classes! your scraps

of tattered accomplishments, clipped
and collected, suggest
your dreams’ remnants, your
need for some, for any

audience, seeking
for response’s hint, some
answer’s faint echo
or intimation…

and you have known too many
too-polite
rejections (“no, not
quite that, it does not

suit our needs just now”),
have known too many
listeners, displaying
patience far too clearly.

old poet, with
your quatrained verse
and cliched line, your
failing, trembling voice suggests

your need, your shame half-hidden
(you defend, i think,
too much, at too great
length–to no attack).

and, having displayed
your loneliness like some hidden,
shyly revealed (and ugly)
wound, you slowly fold
your achievements’ scraps
into your venerable, time-marked
briefcase and slowly, awkwardly walk
(impeded by your aching joints)

away, awaiting only
another, similar call…packing away, too,
that loneliness, like some
heavy, nearly unbearable burden.

____________________________________________________________

Written in the summer of the year I turned 15.

Entry filed under: Ancient Poetry, voices. Tags: elegy, poetry from voices.