"nesmith" poems
The song played-- muffled, hesitant,
As if the tabletop jukebox
Seemed unsure of the tune’s suitability,
As out of place and time as ourselves,
It being Wednesday morning three A.M.
At the all-night diner on the Klondike Road
(The mills, going full-bore down the road in Montmorenci Falls
Making such a place viable, indeed necessary),
But we laughed loudly and nonchalantly
Between bites of nearly adequate cheeseburger,
Ostensibly unaware of all those inevitabilities
Which were tangible but unspoken, indeed unspeakable,
This being the last of the last summer not careworn,
Textbooks to be exchanged for neckties,
Plastic sandals swapped for sensible flats,
Other lives to take flight in other places,
A mere handful of evenings remaining
Before the clumsy process of untying
All that which had been loose ends from the beginning.
Would I go back? In a sense, it does not matter.
There was always a laundry list of reasons
That it could not be, cannot be, will not be:
Irreparably meshed gears of relocations and reconciliations,
Gordian knots of logic and desire.
Still, in my dreams, I often run like a madman,
Chest burning as my sneakers slap the pavement in the darkness,
Back toward the diner, but it has been razed to the ground
(Likely the case, for all I know,
What with the mills silent and padlocked all these years)
And I paw madly, feverishly through the rubble
In search of some remains of those vinyl chanteuses of love songs,
Those epitaphs of our failures,
Those three-minute odes
To our compromised and conditional successes.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 10:07 AM UTC
NOT LOOKING BACK
I remember standing in a place so long my bones started hurting. After being there for more than a week, I started wondering why.
In the beginning I did it to prove a point, but in the end I became the point I was trying to prove. Yes, bad moments that happen in my life that I would never forget. I carried the pain with me for more than a whole week and suffered along the way.
What I must do now is to renew my strength and replenish my heart. And remember that we all have made mistakes and we must forgive; just as others have forgiven us.
Today I will take a step forward to loosen my bones and relax my muscles and put the past behind me.
Written by Kenneth Nesmith © 2009 Assorted Flavors For Life LLC All rights reserved
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 1:59 PM UTC