Autumn Leaves Poem by jim hogg

The subtle hook of our self love
bewitched us once with wondrous schemes,
and drew us into dead end streets;
we danced, we loved, we dared to dream.

We took the train or long haul flights.
We left a lot of stuff behind,
but did some things along the way,
the best of which we left unsigned.


And now it's time to turn, my love,
towards the creatures we once were:
a driven force, a quenchless thirst
to which we truthfully refer

as glory days, the prime of life;
we really didn't have a clue.
How could we all have been so blind?
Yes, that was me, and that was you.


The future was our promised land.
Our castles high, our greatest hits,
we'd shape them all by our own hand,
and we would never call it quits!

It doesn't matter I suppose
that most of what we understood
was myth we wantonly embraced:
our hearts were set on doing good.


For love seemed real enough, it's true-
and every thrill connected us
to something greater than ourselves,
or maybe just the moment's rush.

And that was meaningful enough;
though who knows what those moments meant!
We harvest pleasure where we can
and later rue each chance unspent,


And yet, I fall for those old heights,
though wary, now, of everything.
And all the style I emulate
is almost all that would-be king

of what I never knew, retains:
a brittle skin - that's on the slide -
that hides a fading hungering:
vague echoes of a throbbing tide...


But still, there's humour bursting through
from time to time in dreams, you know,
when dead end streets come romping in
and suddenly we're toe to toe

and clinching naked, in the snow,
surrendering to how we looked.
But autumn's leaves are beautiful;
how gracefully they slip the hook.


09 07 17