The World Without End is Ending

THE WORLD WITHOUT END IS ENDING

POEMS OF THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

BY

ROBERT WHERRY

COPYRIGHT 1993

LAKELAND FREE PRESS

CORNER OF MAIN AND BROADWAY

I watch myself

A bright red fireplug

Upright and permanent

Corner of Main and Broadway

Cars growl past

Exhausts spewing

Reminders of passing

Shoes pace

The concrete desert

To token destinations

Voices

Echoing an endless litany

Of 

Hello good-by, excuse me

Buy me, sell me

World without end

Waiting for my moment of 

Glory

As I stand at attention

Corner of Main and Broadway

URBAN RENEWAL

A dog of another color

Ambles over the red brick road

Followed by

A freckled boy

in tattered blue jeans

And shirt

Feet bare

A rusted Ford

Resolving to run again

Waits on metal rims

A faded blue pickup

Bares all

Amid broken glass and

Torn metal

A broken down sofa

And matching chair

Highlight the

Tangle of weed-infested yards

Amid the wasteland

Scaling paint, sunken roofs

And boarded windows

A black and white

Silently observes

The vapor

Of the dream

A bright white house

Red roses shining like torches

Waits

For the return

To glory

WINTER SUNDAYS

Sundays, my Father

Walked briskly in the early morning cold

Heels crunching on the frozen grass

And describing his early life of 

Shoveling coal for little pay

Oranges only at Christmas

Life without electricity, running water 

And money, while I

Walked with him 

And dreamed of a future 

Of thundering red Corvettes

Travel to beaches and mountains

And plenty of money

Sunday afternoons

He listened to classical music

During his after dinner nap

Dreaming of the good old days while

I listened to the Orange Blossom Special

And the Black Mountain Rag

Captured crooks

With the Hardy Boys

And dreamed of fiddling

With Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys

Dilemmas

In the magical kingdom

Of life

WHAT THE QUILT KNOWS

With its

Red, white and blue squares

Solid and respectable

Pink spirals

Crawling

Toward black borders

Intent on irrelevance

White spheres

Besmirched by

The years

Visual vanities

Crafted

Out of colors of the psyche

Knowingly wrapping itself

In the starched propriety of

Respectability

SHE

She kindly broke his wings with an honest 

        answer

And with rejection broke his winds of hope

Her sudden laughter broke the wings of his dreams

As memories broke the wings of the moment

Than the clouds broke the mood of the day

SEAS OF CHANGE

Where mountains

Rise from the smooth skin of earth

Where glass eyed lakes

            form glittering images

Where valleys wrinkle 

            the face of the earth

There intrudes the symbols of childhood

A steel-eyed Indian, in harmony with nature

Lewis and Clark

          mapping the destruction to follow

There, in the wilds of Idaho

Calling me

I dream of endless trees

A life without care

Part of me lives

For the full moon rising

Over the mountains

Reflecting on the water

Alone with my thoughts

Part of me wanders in

        a world without people

And has reached the bottom

Where I live in

            a sea of change without change

PORCH MAGIC

The porch 

Surrounding the house of our yesterdays

Elaborate architecture of wood

Flat as the Kansas prairie

The rotting

Unpainted boards

Became elaborate cities 

With high rise office buildings

Freeways, parks

And people

Surging seas with warring ships

Peg legged pirates,

Feuding on the stormy water

Burying gold coins in wooden chests

On small deserted islands

The badlands teeming with desperadoes

As we rode in

Beat the bullies

And loved the ladies

Rejoicing in our shadow lives 

In the blazing summer sun

The reality of the porch was,

Cool nights

Sleeping with the dogs and the cats

A shady spot on a hot summer day

Twisting on the support poles

Intoxicated by the motion

Of reality

Good as the myth

HAIKU

Spring dissolves into

dusty dry red pictures

of ordinary death

winter arrives as

a glittering and guilty

victim of summer

patterns of green lurk

in trees, visual systems

of an early spring

birds, brightly colored

trill songs, desperate homage

to slumbering sun

DREAMS OF YOUTH

Living in the present

Life,

A never ending song

Of highs and lows

Old age

A foreign place

Never to be visited

Like a never present tomorrow

Hearing the sweet songs of Spring 

Dissolve into

The sour dirge of Winter

Visual fading

As the years 

Stain the colors of

Dreams unfulfilled 

Like a sunset, swallowed by the dark

Touching

The rough dry form

Of the wrinkled replica of life

The roughness of the years

Like hardened bark on a tree

Tasting the my

Of sour

Shattered success

And bitter

Tattered dreams

Hearing the cheers of youth

Turn to the jeers of

Retrospective thoughts

The redundant musty odor

Of wasted time and opportunities

Like the muddy river, never

To be the ocean

DAYBREAK

Yellow light,

Fractured by the shades

Filters into the room

6:50 a.m.

Sleep collapses into shrilling alarm

With silky voices

Into reflection

Of plastic answers

Brain foggy

Dark emotions

Dreams, now

Exposed to light

New decisions

The new day

Hits my face

Like cold water

Day breaks

Into the glass of light

Cold water

Hits my face

New day

New Decisions

CELEBRATION

I celebrate

The first jolting cup of hot black coffee

Lake a blade cutting through the fading dreams

I celebrate the ritual of 

Lifting weights of iron

In the middle of daily chaos

I celebrate the surprise phone calls

The morning mail,

A letter or card arriving

Like a sudden unexpected gift

I celebrate the cherry pie

Delightfully red and sweet

A marvel of perfection

Amid the routine of ordinary

I celebrate the twilight

And all stars defending the settling

Of darkness