Colin F. Jones

TO A FRIEND IN PASSING

Before the bar, with inundated mind,
(servant of silk tongue and its reward)
Mumbled truth in smoke screen, ill defined,
Lingers caught in lie lest it be bored.
Save for the joy on lip and in the eye,
Exaggerated by the pearls of liquid drops,
None seem to see his potential talent die,
When liquor reigns and rational thinking stops.
There, man is mountain, though week his base may be,
Like a castle built upon a flooded moat,
Through blurred vision, but falsities to see,
That choke his truth with vomit in his throat!
What was his life, in looking back afar;
A washed out truth, consumed behind a bar.