J. K. Durick- Three Poems

 

               Fall

 

The leaves have lost their green,

Their promises of bud

Of bloom and blight.

 

They have added some color

And variety and contour, but

 

The leaves have lost their trees,

Now stretch out on lawns,

Lay claim to their moment.

 

They tumble and toss themselves,

Kick and crumble, crackle under foot.

 

The leaves remind us, whisper

About our beginnings and endings,

 

They remind us now of the feel

Of inside places, of a warmth

They will never feel again.

 

The leaves are losing their hold

On us, like this they drop down

Into time and are going, blowing,

 

Gone.

            

                   Suspects Sought

 

Each time, the pursuit seems to fit the crime.
Whose fault — that early morning assault
the late night burglars burgle and break
the hustling smash and grabbers take, and take
the bustling purse nabber, the old wife stabber

– they line up the newspaper columns,
police statements and photo ops for
eye witnesses and neighbors who swear,
quite regularly, that things like this never
happen around here, around here everyone
knows everyone, never lock doors, and watch
for strangers, except like last night with all
that mugging and that slugging and that lugging
everything away,

so today there’ll be a suspect or two, or a few,
others of interest – the tall dark one, the stocky
one with his backwards hat, or that gray get-
away car with a too loud muffler, and there’s
always a reward and a number to call if we saw,
or see it, or any suspicious doings being done.

It’s just as we thought — always there’s a suspect
or suspects being sought.

          

                         What to Do and When

 

So many things remain to do, were left undone and now to do.

There could be a list of things to do, but it’s not done

and would be on the list too, if I had done a list of things to do

and haven’t yet done, even the list of things to do, but I digress,

which is something I do too often, too often I digress when there

are things to be done, things to do and not digress, I guess,

like right now when I have so many things to do, things

that need me and my attention, not to mention the intention

of being done. There are so many things I need to get done,

things to do that I lose patience with myself and things undone,

and one, one of these days I’ll digress into the mess  and confess

that I have left undone the things I should have done – the tsks

and tasks of my untackled time, my unfinished life, my yet to do.

There are so many things to do -- that I don’t know when or

where to start –  it’s become something more I have to do.