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.
This poem is so evocative it is almost impossible to finish it. I have never felt so lonely, so in pain, so doomed, so unable to speak.
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