Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
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Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
Fall is Falling
It seemed like a good idea
She was 23 with a book deal
Aren’t some fantasies allowed to be real?
The exceptional ideal
Chorus:
Though I really hoped it
We are not the same
Fall is falling
You’re not calling my name
My friends said i miscalculated
I thought they were sexually frustrated
We all might have necks and backs aggravated
But that shouldn’t mean a life of hesitation
Chorus
My ex-wife called her a gold-digger
And was appalled she was younger than their babysitter
Asked, ‘when she’s sitting on your lap, what nonsense does she whisper?’
I told my therapist, ‘see, this is why I don’t miss her.’
Chorus
It was all so wonderful in the beginning
Your lips reminded me I hadn’t been living
When they stared at restaurants, you’d just be grinning
I’d think to myself, ‘these jealous pricks hate that I’m winning.’
Chorus
But the slightest thing can cause severe tension
You felt betrayed when I wouldn’t make an investment
In your mental patient friend’s latest invention
Something about recycling plant stems for hair extensions
Chorus
And of course it all fell apart
You wrote a shitty second novel about your lack of a heart
Those fickle critics tore it apart
While I had a cardiac episode in a Wal-Mart
Chorus
Well, I don’t have one regret
I’m 85 now and my grandkids are in debt
But for a life in letters, what could I expect?
We may have parted, but at least we met
Chorus
Show Do Tell: A Reading Series & Art Review
Chimney
The autumn twilight
The masquerade
The days move forward
Thoughtless cadets on parade
Do I feel more afraid?
Than what I used to be?
Of being somebody, or nobody
A fading glint
Took me for a walk
I buttoned my coat
Though you wanted to talk
With your dissolvable salt
I know you didn’t mean to
You’re just telling the truth
The faces of strangers
The indifference of a moment
A neighborhood renting
Because they can’t own it
With their inevitable sin
The motorcyclist makes a delivery
Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney
Chimney, has a memory
Of the way things were supposed to be
Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat
With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet
The evening animates
In sashaying wind
It could be leading me further out
Or right back in
To yesterday’s hobgoblin
Everyone’s smarter than me
Monuments to efficiency
And I’m walking in a circle
To find my way home
Dimming those palaces in my mind
Where the light relentlessly shone
Upon pillars of stone
Crumbling to dust in the present
Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant
When I’m a few blocks away
It kicks back to sense
Some ideas fade
Love is permanent
For a sense of recompense
Then Chimney coughs and returns inside
Is she thinking about the one she left behind?
