Thom Garzone

A Doberman’s Elegy

The taste of death is bitter

not sweet as life

You left with darkness

the night who carried you away

barking nearly till a final hour

yet still the silence shields me,

the peace, settling

 

To have cared for your fur, skin, and paws

that tapped on my floor, and when you lapped up tap water

and crunching chow

            pouncing on the minute sounds outside

 

            But we wrap you up like a bundle of bliss,

a bale that fits into an infinity of escape

            I ask if words are needed

but Bill only gives his goodbye

 

            So we drive away from the mound

at once to desert your memory

For the Passing of a Friend

Each crossroad seems the same

alike in struggle and fear

Every turn brings us closer

to climax with inner peace,

relief from the sufferance of existence

In the absence of loved ones,

we face our own mortality, its questions,

or righteous creeds, and they who have followed spirited trends

We are made complete by our brother who has passed,

or our sisters, parents, friends onto

this luminous amphitheater that is our souls

Some enter a kingdom to die clean,

and others fail to form days without using,

yet our bond fuses in the universe as we recover

and inherently are one

The Sixties: A Poem

It’s mortifying to understand I’ve been alive this long

born as Huey copters were landing in jungles,

and opening my eyes for the first time while Cuba threatens us with nuclear war

Black and white TV’s are still around

Talkative and affluent wives of attorneys, bankers, and businessmen

chain smoke in doctors’ offices to disregard the “No Smoking” signs

since ashtrays were provided

I’d say my memory is still sharp, able to tell fables to grandchildren

as a Moses-like character

But these descendants would only be hypothetical casualties of my frivolous journey,

really asking: Where am I? Who knows?

now reading them bedtime stories to the spirits I ran from

Songs I grew up listening to are called Oldies

New math isn’t new any more

My father and mother would both be over 100 this year

When I teach poetry, literature, and creative writing

I can link my own books to the prehistoric dinosaurs we study

On reentering college this fall semester I’ll be closer to retirement

The time I set my coming-of-age stories in

ought to be considered historical fiction

I don’t want to grow this old

to look and sound or appear this old

I don’t hope for the gray streak that slices back on my black head of hair

to embody the length of time I’ve been alive

Why not live as an ancient philosopher, venerable, wise, respected, and dignified?

Why not pass on tales of yesteryear to the children of tomorrow?

Let their truth in years resolve these decades I’ve endured

where a lens of ages bear the gulf of generations, free to feel

answers from such sagacious parables I could ever offer