The seconds pass like photographs

The seconds pass like photographs That moment before we kissed I still remember, sometimes minutes of that moment. Ours was happiness, if muddled with confusion, Did we know ourselves well enough to rule the other out? In slipping hours, count the flowered walls. In a daze time sneaked upon me It was on me drew me fast unto it Ere I knew it, what was come was gone. Days of living for a time Waiting, waiting for my rhyme. Weak, I knew the truth as it unfolded Splendor streaming down like curtains Torn by claws and rent by truth Not good enough to act aloof Weeks by moments crept by omens Softly, sneakily drinking in a sorrow Think tomorrow fixes what has happened yesterday By the way, that’s when you get your say. Months like moths go fluttering by So many clumsy winging strings of time Have flown to find themselves burnt up The candle flame has called them And enthralled them, mercy pours Like checkered floors of hallways That no longer can be tread Oh say not, do not speak, I will not know If it is dead Years like grinning ghosts have found me They come forth, spring up around me Laughing madly, saying, sadly, That my goals are yet undone. That the setting of the sun has found horizon Trickling downward Now its time to rise again The light of dreaded future holds before me Ultimatums of no return And still And yet And even now Oh still I yearn I look to where the setting sun went down A frown to me the curve of earth bends down I will not turn to meet my destiny. A decade, two, that ought to do, And yet, and still, I am not through So different, and yet similar gain This time seems wasted, just the same So lamely walk the sidewalks of Monopoly Memory Lane Mark Burton Wednesday, October 23, 2002, 4:04 A.M.