Ride

The engine won’t turn over
by turning a key in the trunk.
Rocco my favorite actor
takes the wheel to get it going.
Straight out, the guy’s a respectable mess.
It’s like he lives in the trees.

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Salute to Returning Heroes

Returning Hero
Who will be there to remember,
when all has been said and done,
in the cold grey dawn of November,
with a flag and the sound of a gun?
When our heroes return in their coffins
to the bugler’s lonesome call;
and the wives and mothers are weeping
― for they have lost most of all.
Did they give their all in battle
for a brush with the news-hour fame;
for a medal and commendation,
of their soon forgotten name?
Was there purpose in their fighting
or did they die in vain?
Were they sent to war for no reason,
a pointless cause in the main?
When the day comes dawning,
and the final result is zero,
we will recall the brothers and sons,
who were named as returning hero.
We will stand and we'll remember,
and salute their forgotten youth;
each year, in the dawn of November,
as we consider the bitterest truth.
© 2010 : Colin Gordon-Farleigh

Playing For Keeps

I listen to your old songs

and for the first time

your words strike a chord

and touch me deep

never realized before

just ... entire poem

Worst Summer Ever

Everyone said so or
everyone who had no
place to go which was
anyone we cared to know.

Digital church bells tolled the hours
of sun roasted office towers.

The water was too shallow for laps.
A big blue tarp kept us circling the edge.

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War Trench

I feel good in this bed. I want to pay for it, pay the charges. I owe it to Sears, feeling this good; I want to pay them everything I owe. I want to pay my debt.

Sunset Reverie

I have a cigarette on the fire escape

while I wait for you to stop by

Jimmy’s ‘Castles made of sand’

coming down from the roof

takes me back to better days

like summers in Grand Isle

-

Hasty cars rush by on the avenue below

while their fumes climb up the stairs

The sun slowly sinking

behind the skyline

entire poem