“Question Time”

 

c. 2026 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(1-26)

 

Was it a sin to have fled the path of righteousness

For a fleeting moment of excess?

A gamble taken too lightly

For a tryst played out, over-nightly

In the shadow of a collapsing house of cards

Tossing under the covers, breathing hard

That query comes, when the moon is nigh

And conscious thoughts have been denied

Toe-tapping the boundary of a personal hell

I ought to be more certain, of myself

That stumble damned years of progress with a single step

And now I tip over, at the crest

Groggy, foggy, failing to focus

A reliance on foolhardy hocus-pocus

That mistake cost more than I could ever earn

It set ablaze timbers that continue to burn

Hot and glowing red

As I twist up the sheets, in bed

Were I to seek forgiveness, would it expire

Like a deadline set by the funeral pyre?

I will never be the wiser

Saving up moments of guilt as a mourning miser

Deep and dark, in a daze

Riffing on the revival of a purple haze

This bell rings to signify

That I am not yet ready to fall and die

No, I must linger still

Pouting over a surrender of better will

Head bowed and hands clenched

Holding the rosary and a monkey wrench

Garb of gray

Nothing left to say

It seems almost amusing when considered from afar

That the sum of existence, distilled into a canning jar

Sits waiting to be sipped

Like an errant wing, caught and clipped

To conform

With rules of verse, pleasant and warm

I used to think of myself as good and just

But my ex-wife gave that balloon a bust

“Once, you fit that kind description

But now that is merely a compromised position!”

Given up and over

Plucking the greenery of a four-leaf clover

Until its stem is bare

And the sojourn is said to lead, nowhere

Back to the empty room, with shame

“Repeat the curse, repeat your name!”

I knew she was correct as a matter of course

With the circling clop of a merry-go-round horse

High-stepping over my heart

Stained in full, having backslid, in part

I had to check twice to be sure of what appeared

Was it a Jerry Springer episode, or a lost work of Shakespeare?

My choices were few

A plate of crow, or Mulligan Stew

Stiff and heavy on the floorboards

A pedal-push, untoward

Causing my pulse to surge in a supercharged sprint

Toward a headline in smeared ink, and blocks of spent newsprint

Hail the old year, completed

And a new one, merrily greeted

While I sit and sulk

Over the consequence of being a hapless hulk

Alone now, and forevermore

A quiz-show reference that contestants deplore

With a response sorted and sealed

After a spin of the prize wheel

The grandfather clock has been stilled

My fingers, numb and chilled

At the end of this day