“Hard Times”

 

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(7-25)

 

 

Hard times, a bitter pill

Like weary Sisyphus, rolling his rock up a hill

I find myself bored with kicks and thrills

The last gasp of a waning day

Comes as I watch the sun fade to gray

I know that the poet has no reason to stay

At the edge of darkness, I find

The words of Dusty Rhodes come to mind

“Remember hard times!”

 

At the dawn of tomorrow anew

I stand there with mud on my shoes

Confident over cashing in gold doubloons

The reward of this faithful exchange

Is little better than a handful of grain

But preferable by far, to doubt and disdain

Here’s a detective’s uncovered clue

Words from Bob Dylan still ring true

“When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose!”

 

Now this observation might seem suspect

It would be easy to debate what I project

To behold this gold nugget like a flittering flyspeck

But past the limit of a roadblock gate

There’s a better path to another twist of fate

A crooked creek dug into sandstone and slate

When I read words on a cereal box

I remember that Hunter said he knew the school of hard knocks

“Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!”

 

Hard times, never far from the possible

They linger long enough to turn silver dull

And make dents in the Titanic’s hull

I want to run away but that choice was spent

Fretting over the worth of a lonely, red cent

Now I’m homed in a big box, sat on the cement

It’s time to fold the cards, you must see

In the words of a bard from antiquity

“Speak hands, speak hands for me!”

 

I take no pleasure in retelling the tale

Of being born in the belly of a whale

Yet that origin gave me strength to prevail

I swam across a metaphorical divide

Left in place by a creator on the downside

Pure and postured like an amusement park ride

I remember that a Rolling Stone proclaimed

Mick Jagger was his name

“I was ‘round when Jesus knew his doubt and pain!”

 

Hard times, enough of a default

Making ends meet at the corner-store vault

For a pack of smokes and a 40 of malt

It’s no walk through a garden of grace

When the cold winds whip at an uncovered face

Winter lasts forever, summer for a day

I recall James Brown keeping it free

Dispensing truth, rhythmic and funky

“We’d rather die on our feet than live on our knees!”

 

I don’t have much more to offer but that

A children’s rhyme like your Cat in the Hat

A strong aftertaste left, from Ramen and sprat

Turn back your clocks to comprehend the perks

Of celestial bodies, spinning far beyond the earth

A loose speck of dust, the key to rebirth

I heard it with my good ear, pressed to a tin cup

Churchill shook his fist at naysayers mistrust

“Never, never, never give up!”