Turn of the Season (Expanded 2019)
For Friends and Family
Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
-Robert Herrick
Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses.
Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled they hide in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old,
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays,
And April effortlessly falls into May.
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces,
Slowly trudging through the paces,
Slowly they tighten their laces,
And set out for another monotony dipped day,
Planting their ears to the ground listening;
And many things they'll hear and say,
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening,
And their lovers will whisper are you listening,
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here".
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
And they'll make many a plan and in cases,
And step over cracks in fear of dark places.
The clink of a glass carries on down the hall;
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call",
And they'll retort "for what reason",
And he "none at all".
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall,
And summer slips effortlessly into fall.
What reasons can they make when the night is through,
When it's time to wake what will they do ?
As the days retreat with their hairline,
And each mirror more distortive than the last,
They'll retreat further, further into their mind,
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast,
A desperate thought floating in the breeze,
A candle to thaw the freeze.
Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude,
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb,
Trying arduously to abandon actuality,
But failing and jumping the curb.
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid",
"They've gone to the races",
Two lovers in two different places.
Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom,
Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
At this moment they are Carpe Diem.
Rest assured rest assured,
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture,
Plenty of time
To spend with her,
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give,
Now's to go slow not make haste,
Now's to go slow and live.
And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss,
And where their feet stood,
And what they missed.
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees,
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be.
...
And they'll come to age
Lost among the rushes,
And they'll gaze back on hesitation
Condescending conversations
Sharply silencing hushes.
...
So, before you grow old
And wilt away,
Before summer loses hold
And December has its day,
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy,
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys.
This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy.
...
Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
Scrutinized by throngs
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête.
No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus,
Who instigated the apogee of Athens.
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions.
No, I have not achieved what desired
Thrown to the wind it seems
Another day is expired
Forever slumbering in dreams.
Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted,
Won a few
Others busted,
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering,
I've lived like Cummings:
The farthest extent of emotions,
I've kept a drug induced devotion,
But never could I stop from wondering,
Never could cease sundering.
Oh do not say to me I have
squandered my time,
Racking the innermost emotions of my mind.
Oh do not speak of me
As if I were not here
But some sailor sunk at sea.
Oh do not confront my convictions,
As if I were a child
Lost among the maddening crowds,
Dreaming wild.
No, I am lost to the Demos,
They will not understand.
I wear a veil of pathos,
Deepening desolation with every reprimand.
I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static,
And the only sound a high continual pitch.
...
They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use
...
Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...
You are not wrong who deems
It's all madness it seems
Life was so much more back then
At the apex of humanity
At childhoods end
We are met with insanity
...
They're troubled tonight,
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-
To have
To have not
To operate in the probity of normality,
To practice trembling sobriety,
To lose an arm for the ones you love,
To have in heart the morning dove,
Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion,
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion.
...
The very next morning
Or so it would seem,
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream.
Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount,
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard
"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition
Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death
We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen
Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake
Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder
A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes
Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"
Intolerable mornings of required communion,
Accompanied with formulated phrases,
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table,
Breathing the memory becomes stable,
They hold on to it as long as they are able.
Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center,
Across the room mother enters,
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble
"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight-
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"
The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.
...
With no more action left in my bones,
With no reprise resting at home,
With no pleasure found when I roam,
Distant memories I sentimentally comb.
These gems
Are all I have left,
I'll leave none for anyone else,
Just an old man
Riffing through the shelves.
Poor in mind, poor in health,
Just an old man
By him self.
I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways,
If only I could grasp youth for longer !
If only my frail body were stronger !
If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence,
Opposed to openness,
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness,
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness.
...
Shaking off the foreboding dream,
A distant luminary seemed to gleam,
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud.
"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter,
My meaning is lost under soft mutters.
My smile shields my solemnness,
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness,
But refuse to possess helplessness.
I am as I decree,
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission,
Just one in a transition.
I have tasted the bitters of love,
Witnessed the horrors of death,
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath.
No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent.
I'm dying not dead,
No resolving to expiration
Living instead,
No meeting expectation,
No bowing my head.
In credence I say
I'm living for today
No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow."
...
The heavens opened with their finale word
Come old man and join my hurd
Or was it the universe who spoke
What who gently stirring
Now awoke
Both, one or two, or together in unison
Whispered of sweet reconciliation
Come home my tortured son
Saved from damnation
Or was it darkness who called
Finally silence for body mauled
By time ever moving hand
Come rest in the ***** of the land.
His perception thinned
And then it was as he never been.
.....
The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the unlucky ones heaved their load.
...
Words spoken to strangers and colleagues.
"He was not an exceptional man
Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.
To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"
Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan