SOMEONE LEFT TO WEEP

SOMEONE LEFT TO WEEP

All I want from the gods today are flowers for my tomb
And someone left to sing for me a solemn burial tune.

Today I feel old as a statue on the village square.
Muscles ache with a sad, dull pain,
The residue of advancing years.

Centuries marked off my calendar,
Gone are my dreams of gold behind a rainbow.
Passing fancies of sweet young twenty-something,
Beautiful men chiseled in their underwear.

Today I feel ancient as Socrates, eyes aimed at the empty wall,
Focused on no one and nothing,
Clutching at straws in the musty museum air.

All I want from life today is for shadows to creep lightly,
For the sun to dim and to sink slowly
For someone left to weep for me in tears of crystal silver.

For the moon to pause and sink its claws into the thread of memory,
For the stars to quake and quiver.

Today I feel naked, ugly in my wrinkled flesh.
The angel Gabriel blows his horn for others, not for me.

The years have left my muscles useless, my lips have turned to rust.
Long past is the Golden Age, its heroes choking on their dust.

All I want from life today is a headstone for my fresh made tomb
And someone left to weep for me in the graveyard at high noon.

-BRUCE POTTS
COPYRIGHT 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED