Sketches at The End of an Era
written by: Rando Mithlo
Chasing a ghost
Are you chasing a ghost
Into that shadowed hall
Housed in a meaning
How one may be drawn
To loop on endless repeat
Set to own your psyche
With words of lost meaning
When their paths are crossed
They cast romantic abstracts
Across standards enduring
Why this spirit keeps feeding
Its patent soothing syrup
Are you In bed with a feeling
Yet feel you’re only guessing
What is proof to yourself
Just what heaven they sell
Are you chasing a ghost
Go through walls you’ve known
To give into the mirage
Until the end of the road?
AnnRenee’
Feel the cold, AnnRenee’
Winds are sweeping the valley
Soft features dismayed
Result of whom failed you
Do your eyes gloss over
As the thoughts isolate
This winter melts around you
Wait for spring, AnnRenee’
I talk but what do I say?
You would tell everything
I’d still leave you hanging
In your way, AnnRenee’
I’m half a number short
With a handful of mistakes
It pains me to think
Acts you would entertain
Posed in the dark to be
A deer at the wood line
Just out of reach
End of an Era
Does it seem the end
Of enchantment and allure
They’re closing the doors
Vowing not to return
Does it seem to hover
Concern of decline
Lost to what we measure
When whatever passes for fine
I deplore
The end of an era
The calls go unanswered
The ties coming loose
Exception of the rules presumed
Does that specter arrive
At a place you knew well
An old car in the lot
That figure at the door
Who’ll peer in the window
To back reflected sky
Hasn’t this been looming
Do we ever know why?
Fire of ‘02
A Craftsman in white
Old clapboard sides
What was always a welcome sign
Ravaging the walls
As ghostly snow falls
An orange mouth devours its soul
I park down the road
Rushing for one more
Image to recount for all time
Her notes can’t be saved
Old timber in the frame
Gilded age opulence
Crashing through windowpanes
Heat our watering eyes
To our gutted facades
We’d take the few things
You’d need for today
A far possibility
Unforeseen in your tarot
Ending at a century
Not to see tomorrow
Now removed from the year
Details hasten to fade
Held in negative space
Kids climb cement stairs
Leading nowhere (they wonder)
Golden Hair
The car Idles
Door is open
Earring by the driver side
Disorienting at night
Are these quiet back roads
The one who she knows
Had always seemed off kilter
Beneath quiet composure
Time would end for restraint
From dry runs and planning
Closing up at the workplace
She maps out her next day
As if she had that choice
Thought she heard a noise
Tracks in dirt are telling
Who couldn’t see this coming
They focused past the troubles
They expect the same from others
Who goes next is anyone’s guess
The belongings on the seat
Lifting from the head rest
A golden hair in the breeze
An Experience to Know
Sunlight finds the dark rooms
There’s a maze and a way through
In minor things you’ll choose
No focus on loss
If walls seem to close in
An experience to know
First answer won’t always do
Refine approach to pursue
There’s worth in time spent
In the work and with her
Risk somethings won’t come through
Put in paths before you
It’s the horizon in view
Through wilds and murk
In good pace until it’s clear
An avoidance to follow
Decisions that ring hollow
To just anywhere they go
Whatever the course
Can they depend on you?
- When I Lost The Trail - October 21, 2024
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