Bookends

Charlie in greatcoat and hobnails,
returns ambly/scuffily from a movie,
whistling Simon and Garfunkel tunes,
feeling, despite, arthritic hips
and hangnails (kind of) funky/groovy.

His arrival home,
(a place quite shambly
though not in ruins)
lands him in favorite chair
with favorite book,
a feeling a bit too self-satisfied
his whiskey-warmed wattles assails
as he runs a meaty paw through thinning hair
and round him takes a blear-eyed look
at the books which mark his life.

The merely meagre library gives him pause,
though it’s keeled evenly enough,
draws honied strife from varied straws-
Tao, Wilber, Williams, Whitman,
Emerson, Neruda, cummings, Marquez...
all sweet and dusty, not too neat,
nor too musty, available for the odd peruse,
not evidencing too grave neglect/abuse-
(though begging for the featherduster)
and holding them all together,
clustered, upright, compiled-

on the left;

a firm, fascia-wielding fist,

on the right;

an open hand,
palm up,
love and life lines
long and longing-

so that one get’s the gist-

for all past and, alike,
all future days and nights
our Charles a sucker stays
(whose eyes do easily overmist)
for opposites reconciled,
the way that tense and
restive melody rolls and sways.