Month: March 2019

You can lose your money,

You can lose your temper,

You can lose your mind,

You can lose your sense of direction

You can lose track

Of almost anything.

 

Once I lost my balance

On the edge of a mountain cliff

And fell thousands of feet.

Once I lost my appetite

For no apparent reason

And ate nothing but rice cakes,

Because they have no taste.

Once I lost a favorite pen,

And couldn’t write anything

But notes to myself

Which made no sense.

 

I’ll gladly lose myself in ecstasy,

Once I find its hiding place.

Someday I’ll lose weight,

But not until the bacon

In the refrigerator is gone,

And the chocolate chip cookies

Have disappeared.

 

Proust became famous

Searching for lost time.

But how do you lose time?

Does it hide somewhere,

Along with single socks

And books you always

Meant to read but didn’t,

Because you watched TV.

Is it in the dark recesses of the closet,

Or under the bed,

Or has it simply diffused

Like an odor, into the air?

 

You can have too little time,

Or too much time,

But you can’t lose time,

Because anything lost,

Can surely be found.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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My wife asked me to repeat what I had said,

A common occurrence she blames on muddled speech

Although I suspect that she doesn’t hear things clearly,

Some impediment in the sensory apparatus

Gone undetected by tests at the audiologist’s office.

If I have to ask again, she said, I’m going to kill you.

But how would she do it? I’ve watched enough TV

To know that it isn’t easy to commit a murder

Without leaving evidence of your culpability.

DNA on fibers, drops of sweat, fingerprints, blood.

There’s no gun in our house, and even if there was

I doubt that she’d use it. It wouldn’t be her style.

The knives are all dull, but she could

Smother me as I slept and say that my heart,

Which beats from time to time with imperfect rhythm

Had given up, although I think that the forensics people

Would discover the signs of foul play.

She could join me on a mountain hike

And give me a push me when I stood close to an edge,

But what if I survived, a hopeless invalid,

Or what if no opportunity presented itself?

She could poison me—the Russians know how!

But where would she get that fatal drop of whatever,

And how would she keep the fact of it from coming to light?

No, better to stay in the realm of fantasy,

To let the warning linger in air of our relations,

Which can be kept happily intact through the simple

Act of speaking in a strong, clear voice.

I’ll try, but if she wants to have the knives sharpened,

I’ll make sure to stay on my guard.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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The famous rock and roller sang,

You can’t always get what you want,

But do you really know what you want

Before you know what you can have?

 

A friend said, if you keep pointing fingers

You’ll eventually point at yourself.

Is he a savant, a philosopher disguised

As an ordinary man, a man whose

Ordinary mind turns up a nugget

Of truth, or is he a fraud, exciting

The gullible with pronouncements

So silken they’re sure to have once

Been sow’s ears.

 

You can get what you want

If you want nothing, or only a little.

A practical policy, though unpatriotic.

 

Didn’t somebody say, I want it all.

Is that person to be admired? Or pitied?

We’re cajoled into buying things we

Never imagined wanting, things we

Don’t need, things that will make our

Lives more difficult, although we won’t know it.

 

There’s the rub. What we want is knowledge,

The knowing that pricelessness is a concept

Of ridicule in the circles that may come near,

But will never open to let us step inside

And see everything we’ve always imagined

We wanted, everything that will allow us

To eagerly peer at reflections of ourselves,

To smile and say, And this is all.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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Empty spaces to be filled,

Shelf with books and art objects,

Drawer with socks and underwear,

Closet with shirts and pants,

Car trunk with shopping bags,

First aid kit, hiking gear.

 

But what of the hollow spaces

In the mind where facts echo,

Where opinions rattle like loose bearings,

And the light is so dim one has to grope

To find the way to the door.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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