Only the Past Has a Future

Don’t tell me the future because I worry
what the wind says when it howls
and why the rain sprinkles then pours
until I see nothing new in the sky

This is how poems start looking for rhymes
at a slant, off the edge of of, like if
it don’t bring in money how about yourself
giving up this pansy practice for crime

The last woman I loved tells me you make five,
I insist it is only four I loved
and now I must ask the witchereen
if I pass muster, if I am still sane . . .

Let’s get into a little action . . .
Don’t worry if you seem to be shunned
in the silence following the cry of a loon,
it don’t mean you’re no beautiful woman

None of any of this is a poem
though it constitutes space and time
. . . the doddering masters of rhyme
know art is more difficult than it seems

and death comes for you far too soon,
you are walking down a country lane
when out comes the water and rainbow man,
one to slake your thirst as the other rains down

(22 March 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander