Tunes on an old guitar

So that’s life
things as they are
the days and the hours
love and its absence
melody and monotone
restless fingers plucking
at an old guitar
the buzz of flies
around what is dead
the buzz of bees
around bounteous nectar

things as they are
such as desire
such as love
such as consummation
such as indifference
such as loss
the nothing-changingness
of abandonment

hence the poets’
drifting ships
and he who stoppeth
one in three
a life that leans
into the shadows
ducks to avoid
the scrutiny of light
steers by way
of wayward stars
head floundering
in the clouds

things as they are
or were
the leaden lips
of a dead kiss
memories taken
by the throat
poetry a work
of the mind
things as they are
or as they were
once
but enough

John Lyons