How Things Are

I carry a picture in my pocket
And kiss it everyday
So when God comes to take my soul
He’ll know just where it stay

I keep my anger in its socket
Tho' it says come out and play
So when God comes to take my soul
I will have squeezed it all away

I write happiness on a docket
To plan it well for its display
So when God comes to take my soul
He’ll not hear my regret pray

But my love? It is on a rocket
To take off in fiery noisome way
So when God comes to take my soul
Blazing triumph’s colors say what I would never say.

Scene!

Look, a poem. Needs some work.

_____


There is a wall in front, between.
Perhaps nothing on its opposite.
Waiting, long and patient, makes the scene.
Boldness, the prop pickaxe, holding it
So that it will not fall until the moment come
When director overhead cuts quick to action.
And this actor leaps, heart moved to some
Deeper emotion, a place of passion.
Down tumbles the wall! He has broke it all
As he constructed it; solid but at one spot.
If you tap it, strike it well, it shall fall;
The weakness hope and faith has bought.

But what lies there he as yet cannot tell.
Elysium or a statue or a sober lonely cell.