Ode for a Tomorrow Lost

Ode for a Tomorrow Lost

Neon illumination begs for understanding.
I shy away from artificial brightness.
The gases plead, “We are noble lights.”

I toil over meaningless academic phrases.
My thoughts reside in yesterday’s parlance.
I recognize a kindred spirit hiding in argon.

I drink myself into a hawk. The kite takes wing.
Yesterday shapes clouds that defer my flight.
I screech; the deluge pounds out a rhythm.

I enter a theater with room only for standing.
I watch a woman whom I desire dance.
She recites love poetry for some other gentleman.

I close a book; the fluorescent library collapses.
A cloud of words beckons me into an elevator.
I go underground to find the specter of my father.

“Dear Son,” he laments, “why have you done thus?”
“My father,” I plead, “what have I done at all?”
“My only son,” he says, dismayed, “nothing at all.”

I walk up a stairwell. I sob at the break of each flight.
What have I done? What have I done at all?
I have trod no new ground. I have found no new path.

I bind myself to yesterday; I tether tomorrow to when.
I kill then with the remembrance of previous hours.
I wallow in unresolved dilemmas. I march backwards.