after noon

the morning seems
distant and the evening
too far away.

neighborhood is calm
sitting near window watching
as the world goes by

stop the world
stop the time
take a moment

afternoons are when
men grow old. not the
endless nights or the
periods of sleep, it
is the afternoons
that get to you

especially the weekends
with no work to distract you
for surely no one can work all
the time to while away the seconds
tick tocking down to some endpoint some
-where on the horizon.

long summer days each second plays out
in its entirety - as in with thoughts and
wondering and thinking and exa-
mining
instead of living.

reverie like a heat wave sticks to
your soul as well as your skin
as you think about all the
times you've been in
and out and it's a-
bout something
else entirely.

the poet growing older in the
afternoon picks and plucks
random memories from
the mind to translate
to the page in any
old order to try
and make a
bit of sense

the edge of
the abyss exists
even in the afternoon
if not more so

peering into it
can be calming
but it also ages
you prematurely
making you seem
wrinkly and as every
one else, beholden to
time - these frail bodies
within which exists who we
really are in our minds. or is
that which we translate from our
thoughts to action what we really are?