Six Poems by Joseph A Farina

 

Eustias at Christmas 

 

 Eustius walks

 during christmas season

 along dirty paths

 without rhymes

 without reason, glances

 in storeglass

 full of gifts in profusion

 wrapped in the colours

 of joy and delusion

 

 he gathers his great coat closely

 about him

  wiping his eyes

  wet with incursions

 of dreams and ambition

 and the losing of laughter

 

 searches store aisles 

 for that lost special one

 who was so long before

 when this time

 was still fun

 which held laughter

 and love

 and the snow was his friend

 

 

eustius at forty 

 

Eustius Clay turned forty to-day, 

       he has not changed from his 

       pre forty years 

he still wears wide ties 

and dreams of her eyes, she whom he dreamed  

                         to marry 

           but never dared ask 

    and has yet to bury. 

 

Eustius dreamed once of post thirty nine 

when he was a poet,  long ago 

         he'd have children and friends 

         and laughter with love 

                                   but that was his 

                         dreaming 

   in rhyming and verse 

he wished for better 

                    but accepted the worse. 

 

his hair has grown thinner 

and bare in the back 

he combs it different and tries to laugh 

but eustius knows with the calm of his age 

that it was too late before 

                           and has nothing to gain 

                           except when he's watching 

violence and sex 

and dreams of the hero 

and sees himself flex 

his muscles in video 

no longer in rhymes          

 

laments his lost poems 

and becomes like his image 

old in the end 

                 dusty and balding 

                 and cursing his pen.

 

 

Eustius at Sixtyfive

 

eustius clay

turned senior to-day

no one remembered

except his insurance agent

who sent him a card

printed, embossed

wishing him greetings

and offering him joy

with 10% off

if he purchased to-day

a policy, which 

would pay in the end

a handsome amount

to family or friend.

 

eustius didn't think

that a party was proper

co-workers weren't close

and no one else offered

friends were something

he never quite had

except long ago

when he thought he was glad

when he walked with a spring

laughed with the sky

until all if it crumbled

to this day he asks why.

 

eustius writes in his journal

each day,

snippets of prose, starts of a play

poems and verses

he keeps and destroys

words to encourage

lines devoid

of laughter and hope

that he writes to explore

his world and his life

and the answer to why -

he came close once

but life passes him by

and he knows

that he just

barely survives.

 

eustius goes to his only room

where he watches t.v

lives out the lives

of his favourite shows -

he is all of the heroes

single

married

with friends

rich and powerful patron

as he defends

the weakest among us

he is both lover and death

for six hours each night

he is no longer alone

until he retires 

and the real world begins.

 

eustius prays to his god

from a dog-eared prayer book

asking the angels 

to take him this night

to protect him and guide him

and to make it all right

but he knows

that  the words

that he prays are just that

words to appease

words to ward back

the fear that he'll live

fifty more years.

in his room

with his books

and his question of why

his  life

full of promise

became a sad lie...

 

eustius sleeps

in his bed all alone

waiting for visions

that he can write down

hoping in sleep

that his answer will come

that the angels take pity

and make him as one....

 

 

eustius clay 

 

                  eustius clay 

                  has made his bed 

                  combed his hair and 

                  smiled to the reflection 

                  he knows so well - 

 

           he is a master of reflections - 

 

                    the phone 

                    has not rung. 

 

           eustius knows  

                         that it never will 

           unless by morticians 

           and friendly wrong numbers 

           that hang up too soon. 

 

                  9:00 o'clock:  the records 

                                have all been played... 

           eustius knows the words by memory 

                         and sings them in bed 

                         by the light of the streetlamp 

           that shatters the darkness 

                         of his perennial room.

 

 

getting festive

 

on the first day of winter

the first thing eustius did

was take the trash out to the curb

the early snow had melted

revealing his littered lawn

with all the leaves he refused to rake

when the days were still mellow

and the sun shined like new poems

alone without his muse to hold him

he gazes into the digital fireplace blazing

reminisces with himself

to the strains of carols

from Andy Williams Christmas album

this season of aches and wants

and dreams mostly unfulfilled

 

 

Eustius on the shore

 

Eustius sits alone

in his chair

in the corner of his room

the t.v. flickers

sad blue light

upon the walls

that he calls home

he reads his poems

that never left him

he knows them all by heart

children

that he never had

by love 

made with his words

 

it has been five years

since he last wandered

through the gleaning avenues

frosted in their winter cotton

frozen hard against the sun

too far away to matter

 

he has grown older

his mirrors show him

he knows with certainty

that soon

the pain 

that grows within 

will ease

his pain without -

and so he reads

all of his life

in yellow pages in a file

he kept

instead of throwing out

 

Eustius thinks 

perhaps this night

he may return to riverbanks

stick in his feet

and in the coolness

dream of waves upon the shores

of his ancient arid island

while under the light of a hazy moon

compose more words that he can keep

to memorize in his only room

to be part of his life....

 

 

 

Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. An award winning poet. published in  Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Ascent ,Subterranean  Blue  and in   The Tower Poetry Magazine, Inscribed, The Windsor Review, Boxcar Poetry Revue, and appears in the anthologies   Sweet Lemons: Writings with a Sicilian Accent,  Canadian Italians at Table,  Witness  and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century.  published in U.S. magazines   Mobius, Pyramid Arts, Arabesques, Fiele-Festa, Philedelphia Poets and  Memoir and in Silver Birch Press  Series. He has had two books of poetry published— The Cancer Chronicles   and   The Ghosts of Water Street.