Retrospect

RETROSPECT

Written as a poem prior to a weekend playing music and jamming with friends up in the mountains, the song it became in 1998/1999 is lost with the cassette tape-recording. I can still play it back in my mind and before it fades from my memory, at least in some way, the lyrics may live on. I dedicated it to Kristen K and if you’re out there, lovely red-haired lady, then it’s you, me and ‘THE ROACH’ keepin’ it smokin’. 

I hung up the phone last night

You had told me everything was all right

Then why the pain of fear and fright touch my heart?

I remember the last days of summertime

We were children in our innocence and in our minds

Do you remember that fateful day

When we learned about the ways that a human being can prey

We were fine ‘til we heard that noise

Underneath of the apple tree in your yard

Its funny how we never make any sense…

You came to me in a dream last night. Your illusion reflected in a pool of light.

Asked me if I would pause to catch a dream.

You took my hand and we tumbled down

a flight of stairs until we reached the ground.

The grass was soft beneath my feet.

It was then that you turned and ran away. Leaving me…what to say?

What does it mean?

And the air turned cold as I walked all alone on a road of broken cobblestone.

I heard your voice. From far away. And I called to you. To come back and play. But I couldn’t understand the answer that you gave.

So I told my legs to run. Faster than they had ever done. Towards your voice ‘cause I’d made the choice that I would never leave your side.

Look back. As I turned my head and the wind blew cold. And we froze.

How was I supposed to know?

How was I supposed to know?

I remember the last days of summer in our lives. In our innocence we disbelieved in time.

And you lost me. And you lost me when I left you.

And you lost me. And you lost me ‘cause I loved you.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Copyright 1999, 2012 by Kimberly Cox

FALL, EPHEMERAL FALL

Fall, Ephemeral Fall

Sonnet Tweeted Live, 12-10-11, 14:10 EST, #GWxii

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When all honesty return’d with contempt,

Return as unspoken vulgarities;

Tis’ thine own lips, contorted; words attempt

Displacing love, truth, for false charities.

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Neither Saint, nor Sinner, wherefore lies true speech?

As chaste, yet base, for layeth mine between.

Where honesty doth lie beyond thy reach,

Why speak thee lies, fallacies, so obscene?

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I love not riches, prestige, nor power;

All ‘ere loved I, but true, love honesty.

Abortive, words, pluck’d barren thy flower,

Reveal how thoughts breed thy deformity.

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Ephemeral petals, brittle’d rust!

Defile’d virtue, love’s truth withers to dust.

Portraits Of A Millennial: 4 Windows