Near the End of a Meeting of the Live Poets Society

A black clock

Was what I saw,

With white numbers

That were really planets,

Which ticked around

The round void.

We saw it all

Upon our wall,

And now we waited

As it commanded.

But one of us wanted

To say one more poem,

Not stopped by the clock,

Though the meeting had ended.

The poem would be sung,

Unafraid of time,

Unabashed, clear,

As it took a ride

On the white numbers

That were actually planets,

Forming a ring

In a void not inimical.

So the song did go down;

The song did go up

On a Ferris Wheel,

Measureless, 

Whose fun stops

Only to fearlessly

Start again--

Its turning renewed,

Slightly improved,

Surprisingly dependable,

Our glee unreproved.

But can a song be free

From clock and void?

Are we allowed to see

Our glee go free?

      © Stephen Margulies, 2018

Eye on the Bay, Bridlington ~ Yorkshire, England
Photo by Paul Glazzard
from the Geograph Project
on Wikimedia Commons

Dad's First Car

Somewhere in the ‘20s that would have been,

when a man learned about magnetos and mudholes,

when he took care not to break an elbow or thumb

when twirling a crank, carried a cake of soap

for a squeaky fan belt and a pinch of oatmeal

to seal a radiator leak, knew that somewhere

on a back road he’d borrow a fence rail for a jack,

have to back up the steepest hills

when the engine was starved for gas—

small bits of lore from a time long gone,

as he is, but strong in his memory

as he is in mine, lips still moving in some silent language,

still telling me stories I really want to hear.

              © David Black, 2018

Woman hand cranking the car to start it on a rainy day, August 1926
Photo by Infrogmation of New Orleans
from Wikimedia Commons