Clayton Medeiros's Shared Poems

I better get out of bed and get moving
The end of times is around the corner
Who knew
Procrastination is home to roost
Books to read
Check lists to check
Emails to answer
Youtube videos to vet
Twitters to twit
Facebook to interface
Wait
The last star will not burn out
For one hundred trillion years
I need to cogitate on this
With a beer or two on the deck

Primroses on the dining room table
Bring yellow orange and cream
Reflections to the french door windows
Bely winter's damp gray night
Brighten the oak table top
Like Victorian girls
Ready to open picnic hampers
On spring time blankets
Caught by an impressionist painter
As another Sunday disappears
Into history's yesterdays.

Gloucester
Even if you've never been
Or have no idea where it is
You know its a fishing village
Cranky weathered wood buildings
Piled along the bay's curve
Clapboard taverns with pickled eggs
In a big jar behind the bar
Cheap beer with names like Narragansett
Hunched fisherman on bar stools
Speak to the old days
When cod and haddock were infinite
Out on the Georgia Banks
You could pay for the kid
Too clumsy to ever be on a boat
When a northeaster rises
To get a degree at UMass
Maybe even an MD or law degree
But today just memories
And a glass or two of Narragansett
A shot of Canadian Club
When the phone rings near closing
The bar tender says he's not here
I haven't seen him today
Another round another round

I am in my book she said
As I sat at the computer
Keeping up with my version
Of the twenty four seven news cycle
Mostly perusing art and science
With a touch of human interest
Since it helps me remember I am one
Not the transplanted son of an alien
Sent here to pay my debt
To a superior celestial society
When I looked up she was gone
The book closed on the chair
I hoped it was a story she would like
Plenty of whimsy and no violence

If you don't like this world
A bit distant in time and space
There are thousands of others
That might ameliorate
Your undeserved angst
Accrued over the years
From Adam and Eve
Getting us kicked out
For our cat like curiosity
Our need to know what's what
In all this quantum complexity
Where uncertainty rules
Even if dice do not roll
In some celestial casino
Managed by fallen seraphim

Life is a chancy affair
But maybe just maybe
We get another shot at it