HANGING BY A PRAYER
Every thing seems normal
and OK
but why the queasy greasy
feeling of unease
that's upon me this day.
I have errands to run
and they pluck at my sleeves
like a beggar's plea.
My mental check list
as each task is done
is with no pleasure
that I can see
and surely no fun.
My pant cuffs are coated
with the mud
of a hound looking
for a place to crap
and I reckon that
when this time is gone
its never coming back.
I shaved my wrinkled face,
how did my father
get into this place
to look back at me
from the mirror?
He is no more
except in browning photograph
and voices that talk
from behind the cenotaph.
The sound of soldiers
singing on the march
the song drifts through the trees
and tells of derring-do
from mostly forgotten wars
a long way overseas.
The time stamp that is this photograph
and those strange short dated fashions
are enough to make you say
''What were they thinking?"
and is to laugh.
It seems sometimes like I'm forever,
but surely to be fair
I'm just bumbling along insensitive
and
hanging by a prayer.