The Day I Said, "The World Can Wait"

started at Busboys & Poets on 10/12/09
finished at work on 10/14/09

The day I said, "The world can wait,"
The clocks froze in their tracks.
The Minutes retired silently;
While in vain the Hours fought back.

Conversations paused mid-sentence
A painter dropped his brush mid-stroke
One hopeful lover said, "I do,"
The other ceased, half eloped.

A fly buzz was the last refrain
Heard for a thousand miles
A widow's dirge cut short,
Her pain half-reconciled.

A hunter cocked his gun,
The bullet stuck inside.
His game stood still - fixated -
Staring Fate straight in the eyes.

The stoic captain firmly stood
Feet anchored, mouth tight lipped.
The deck had tilted sharply
On his halfway sunken ship.

The china lay in pieces
While a couple griped the cost
If I hadn't begged the world to wait,
What else would have been lost?

A sewing needle had begun to mend
The lace of a wedding dress
The hum of Mother's lullaby
Would have eased her child's distress.

The sight of that day's sunset
Would have left the dead inspired
The words scrawled on a napkin
Might have changed the world entire.

Good news to tell by telephone
The number just half dialed;
The frown on someone's lips
Had almost curled into a smile.

What caused me to imagine
A plan so lost, depraved?
Think - if the world had waited,
What else could have been saved?

Out on the pier where I first believed
Sits a dream deferred, a soul bereaved.
The sun sinks alone and thaws in the sea.
The remains - bathed in dust - picked up by the breeze.

Reality bites hard
But you build a tougher skin
From the callouses

I must apologize -
For I am more comfortable with oceans between us
Than swimming in the waves of your attention.

I love from afar
Because it warrants much less pain
And keeps my wrists and ankles
Far from ball and chain.

Can't you see that I can't belong
To anyone but me?

Oh, stop your dribbling and your sniveling!
Ain't you ever seen a bitch before?
Yeah, this is what heartbreak feels like.
Been there, done that.

No, I don't have time to
"Talk it over"
or
"Work it out."

You keep flapping those lips,
You'll produce enough wind current for a sailboat.

The alarm's going off.
Time to grow up.

I had almost forgotten that I kept a shell -
To remind me
What sunsets felt like.

I kept it tucked away
And upon discovering it again,
I considered it.

With its ridges and its serrated edges
It cut through my consciousness
And chastised me

For taking it so far from its Belonging.

At the end of the day,
I sometimes feel as an empty shell
Hollowed, dried, and mislaid.

The Age of Not Believing

Vintage wisdom from Bedknobs and Broomsticks

When you rush around in hopeless circles
Searching ev'rywhere for something true
You're at the age of not believing
When all the "make believe" is through

When you set aside your childhood heroes
And your dreams are lost up on a shelf
You're at the age of not believing
And worst of all you doubt yourself

You're a castaway where no one hears you
On a barren isle in a lonely sea
Where did all the happy endings go?
Where can all the good times be?

You must face the age of not believing
Doubting ev'rything you ever knew
Until at last you start believing
There's something wonderful
Truly wonderful in you

Lauriol

In certain cities,
A man will look you up and down
Before he looks you
In the eye.