Old Poet Succumbing to Retrospection

How his mind was always filled with music in what manner

he strove and strove from the age of fifteen

in an orchard foged with applebloom to the age

of seventy-five in this in like manner small and shabby room

strove to invent a piece of poetry that would cry out

in the variable webs of Bechet's soprano sax

or Webster's tenor soaring growling whispering

How he always failed in what way he toiled

as the years came more and more to pres

upon his will although he nevertheless not ever

permitted himself to give up by what mode he says

to himself now Is this a life And by what means it must be

for what other can it be How he would have liked

even in like manner something more Or something a little les

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated Nov/Dec 1997

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