Invitation To Reality Poem by Toby Twigg

Invitation to Reality ___

Embossed, elegant and proper
With white glove upon silver tray
(__‘He imagined) the Invitation
Would surely come
To announce his required presence to attend.

His fellow wordsmith's and other known
Notorious Poets of the Dusky Café,
Would say, 'Come speak and bend your phrase
and entertain us, on this, your sixty-first birthday'.

A celebration that would envy, Cyrano, Don Quixote'
and all those other guys with
Wine, laughter and raucous noise
While out on the town with the boys.

With this, a gentle tear did shyly slip
Past cheek, mustache and hidden laugh.'
'My life is proven to be all that I have dreamed'

(___and With that)

A crack of burn'n wood and steam
Did rise to wake from within that barrel of fire
That warmed the homeless and dispossessed,
Quaked! Don Booda,
In cold damp shoe and common cloth,
Of yesterday's still dressed.

Breath of kerosene, and hunger now asleep,
He'd creep 'round to avoid the shift of wind
That hawkish did bite the face.
Covered in smoke and ash and forgotten sins
For which, he must now pay for his mistake
Of pride, rebellion and anti-social ways.


' Ahhh ___ but those were the days,
Those were the days. '

He wandered in whatever direction
The wind blows his back
Across the tracks through the brush
Of once garden's pruned and manicured
Til bloom of fragrant wafting airs turned to sickly smell
Of graves now frozen gates to hell.

Leaning against granite reality...
Scrapes his knuckles and barely bleeds
Feels the need to rest
Exhausted, crumples and collapses

The stars remain fixed
His world spins in ellipse
Of forever turning
Churning through the airless void.

His Belly flutters
Eyelids squint against the light
Wind whoosh chases night
Summer and being seven follow him
Down the path to a porch well worn
An unlocked door
His Mother's scolding scorn,

' Your hands are dirty and you're late for Dinner '

(About:
Old homeless man wanders into neglected cemetery,
Dies, and spends eternity reliving memories of Thanksgivings past.)