by Steve Gaines
1975
gray hair…
gray face…
still handsome
dead among the tears
and the small talk
and the prayers
sons and daughters…
progeny by the score
standing silently
uncomfortably
in the mortuary’s silence and sighs
in a loud corner two brothers talk
about corporate finance
Continue reading → The Funeral
by Steve Gaines
1984… 1995
once…a very long time ago…
in a world more cynical and simple…
where I never fed off the big questions
I met a fellow creature of my world almost every morning…
…a street person
patched together like a rag doll with too many pieces missing
sad looking and unwashed… once a blonde…
once… from a time beyond wishing it back…
a member of the species woman
but the street had used her up
and put an emptiness in her eyes…
shinning through even the early morning darkness
we shared meeting in the street lights…
by Steve Gaines
this far flat space
land of long-distance sunsets
and storms that approach forever
along a darkened horizon
this Nebraska
wheat field flat
and home of the longest straight stretch
of highway anywhere
fifty-five miles without a bend
by Steve Gaines
post-bypass…
written February 21, 1995
across my room in the other bed
behind the drawn curtain
lies an old man dying without his beard
clinging noisily to one more night of life
by Steve Gaines
July 3, 1954
On my 18th Birthday
A Memorial to an Ill-Spent Youth
It was so long ago
and I seldom bring it back these days
surprised to look at that age of adventure
from this distant couch
unable to recapture that careless attitude…
reluctant to admit the inability I suppose…
but here goes anyway
by Steve Gaines
captured in the bronze of time
my father’s memory shines
hangs prominently on the granite wall
of my own mortality.
by Steve Gaines
once more July!
and the oven of my birth
forty-seven years ago
repeated
the ghost of every Summer in between
suspended on the walls of my mind
inside my head
a cast off clutter of soft memories
by Steve Gaines
I am chased through time
by the failures and promises of my past
I do not regret so much
as I wonder about them
to be satisfied with the results of my life
is not a matter of final judgment
results can be counted only once I stop moving…
or breathing
death…
of whatever sort…
is the result of having lived…
in whatever life
so to think about “mending my ways”
or simply learning from the errors of the past
are nonsequiturs
errors can become successes
after time rubs them smooth
by Steve Gaines
yet another lament
in me
hidden behind a soft spreading waistline
lies an aging man alone
he is limping quietly along
such a well-worn path
in his creaks and cracks
he is the only one ever
to suddenly come smack up against middle age
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