The Gentleman Afternoon

It's a gentleman of an afternoon,

As the sun sinks like a fallow gold tom,

To cast himself in a stippled patch through

The curtain lace, and shadows wash the room.

And I am couched in my indifference like

A sullen shell upon the shore, condemned to

Hear the ocean roar, yet unable to see it

Ever more.

And the lull of the ocean

Are the latent shadows of words

Left unspoken. All that's there to

Hear is the superficial sighs of my heart,

And the forlorn seabird's cries, as it

Soars to embrace the charioteer of heaven.

So I sit in my indifference

Looking back upon my memories

That rap for sanctuary in my mind.

And I think of you (us) and how

You (we) traveled life as though vagabonds

Without our seatbelts on just to shake

Hands with death.

Yet you (we) went your (our) separate way,

You to tilt at windmills, I to chase the fragment

Of a dream. I remember, like faint refrains

Shaking loose their melodies, kissing

Your hand as you sat upon your valiant steed

And I the threshold of the unknown.

And I could not feel your hand, you were

Naught but a shadow, a stranger unto me.

What a poorly written poem I've

Become, a couplet out of rhyme, since

We parted ways. And the superficial sighs

Of my heart are the shadows of the words

I meant to say to your fleeting shadow.

It's a pauper of an evening, as night

Overtakes the trailing dress of dusk.

Darkness soon prevails now,

The poorly written poem best forgotten

As though a shell on the shelf. And so I

Release a superficial sigh, for I took the forsaken path

And you the well-known. And I must wait for my gentleman caller,

The afternoon, to come again before I think of you once more.

It was a gentleman of an afternoon.