Out of love
Means out of words
Out of Purpose
Means out of poems

I’m standing on a desolate railway
Platform waiting for the train to my New Adventure
But the language on the ticket is small and crabby
And promises no such thrills in the mitigating
Legalese designed to protect the bland and
Riskless multitudes from self-enlightenment.

I’ve stopped dreaming you are coming
You still look good, the years having been
Much kinder to you in my visions than
You would know, or probably agree
My thoughts of you wander
Back to when you just turned twenty
But that was several turns ago.

I refuse to see I might have changed myself
But witnesses line up to testify or leave
Depositions, so I might have to alter
That haughty self-opinion. Here’s
The good news, however: The little
Boy in me isn’t quite yet dead and curiosity
Still floats among my Cheerios and makes me
Itchy to go outside, especially in the rain.

But the small and crabby language says
Don’t go out without galoshes, and at least
A baseball cap. Meantime, the umbrellas dancing
By don’t have a lick of you beneath them,
So I wonder to myself what’s the use of getting wet.

Out of water
Means a thirsty tongue
Out of hope
Means a thirsty heart

And out of reasons to philosophize
I’m left to wonder if George RR Martin will
Ever finish “Game of Thrones.”

06/27/2013

Posted on 06/27/2013
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch