Tag: time

How to Abide on Queue

G. Paul Randall

be calmer than an earlobe
but alert to subtle sound
quiet as a muscle twitch
as sterling as a pound

be lofty like the heavens
as consistent as a judge
unattached as fleeting clouds
be disinclined budge

reflective like a polished tile
be brighter than a flame
stoic as a VP’s portrait
valid as a claim

right like rain, and true as grit
determined as a dog
be quiet like a bell rope
and well rested as a log

be patient as a telephone
and sounder than a ring
stiller than a sheeted corpse
but proper, like a king

be ready like a boxer’s glove
for when they call it out
a name upon the intercom
it’s you, there is no doubt

.

Cell Division

G. Paul Randall

Peace, it doesn’t thrive on growth
it’s conflict that takes naturally to
the idea of possession and expansion.

How often the fights we have
within ourselves get out of hand and
spill out into the wider world.

Where the path to reconciliation, once
much simpler, has branched out, circled
roamed, split, and split again, until
simplicity begins to lose its memory.

Cell division looks painful, does
it not, to a peaceful frame of mind.

But looks exciting and beautiful
to the enterprise, one becoming two
grow, it says, or die.

And we look everywhere but within
when, seeing it all spin out of control
we finally become desperate, and ask why.

A Slice of Longevity

G. Paul Randall3 Comments

pyre of the moment
denies all these lingering traces
and the fireproof memories
are breaking and entering
we weep for the dead
and gone, weep for ourselves

the death certificate
rendered into thin strips, gathered
ignited, burned, lanky curled effigies
prostrate their ashen bodies
in offering, an act complete in itself
without forethought, intent
or memory, like a barfly
tossing back a shot of whiskey
at the funeral pyre of this particular
slice of longevity

Rib

G. Paul Randall2 Comments

The bone itself, gone
a stunt double in its place
its owner’s family name recorded
on a little card behind the glass.

Maybe we think of fossils as
being all done with aging
and the ravages of time, simply done
and settled into a final rest.

Now recumbent on speckless felt
once removed, do the next million
years look forward to wearing down
that gouge made by a flint weapon?

Our bones today, somewhere between
the dust and the dust, and
maybe we can fancy ourselves
a million years removed from demise,

Our protesting bones, gone
substitutes pulling the day-shift
museum posers the lot of us, as the future
gazes curiously upon our mineralized remains.

at seven, at dawn

G. Paul Randall2 Comments

At seven, at dawn
the sky changed its mind
and rain drummed to the
gutter talk, and set off
a car alarm, the clouds
coughing up a shutter flash
blinding, stopping all the clocks
who all had memorized
what you forgot:

my birthday, my damp firecracker
with fizzles for wishes
and no funny paper hats, just a
sheet cake looking dumbfounded
like a hostage forced to read
his captor’s proclamation:

that every day is reason
enough to mark a year begun
or ended, so just go with it
what’s your problem?

Forever and a Day

G. Paul Randall

if the Lord had given me
forever and a day
I’d squander the infinity
and then sweat it for a day

but if the Lord had given me
enough of time to do
what needs be done in this short life
I’d screw that all up too

and if the Lord gave me a tick
to simply sit and be
I’d wonder what to be like
while I rubbed my rheumy knee

the truth is we can’t count the days
that haven’t yet arrived
and lay to waste the ones that have
in strategies contrived

from this day on I do commit
to live life off the clock
for time is an illusion
boss, we need to have a talk

This bit is in response to my favorite rhyme & meter guy, Frank Solanki. His poem Sunday Comes Too Early is my kind of stuff.