Curtis Jerry Smothers
Teacher . Editor . Poet . Writing Coach . Historian . Online Tutor
Life’s Long Afternoon
Life looks different in the afternoon than it did in the morning. The road behind us is longer, the road ahead a little shorter, and we have accumulated enough memories, mistakes, triumphs, regrets, and unanswered questions to fill the time between.
These poems are about that afternoon. They look at aging and mortality, but also at family, memory, faith, humor, love, and the stubborn pleasure of simply being alive. Some wonder where we came from and where we are going. Others poke fun at the indignities of growing older. A few peer into the fog and admit that none of us really knows what waits beyond it.
There is sadness here, because life contains sadness. But there is laughter, too—and hope.
After all, afternoon is not evening. The sun is still shining, there are miles yet to travel, people yet to love, and poems yet to write.
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My stallion days
Are but a haze
Reflections of the flesh
Where women knew
My prowess grew
Rejuvenated, fresh
Alas, with age
Bereft, but sage
I cannot but remember
Those ladies think
With age I shrink
And June became December
My one-eyed pace
Is now replaced
With longing memory
Of days gone by
When pleasures, I
Pursued with energy
My sea-borne days
And racy ways
And women I did sport
Are memories now
My ship can’t prow
To life's once-youthful port
My lusty stallion
And sea-borne galleon
Now tethered to the dock
Time's rule obeyed
I'm now stayed
By the crowing of the clock
My stallion ways
Where I did graze
On youth’s fresh new good salad
I miss them now
With winkled brow
And this bittersweet old ballad
Tunnels
If life is a mountain
Then hope is a tunnel
We look for far daylight
Through a small funnel
We wear our own blinders
Thinking we're saved
From things that fall down
Hoping the road is still paved
If hope is a tunnel
Then life is so wide
That we can crawl through it
To the the light that's outside
If daylight's the funnel
And we stare at our souls
Then the bats and the vermin
Envy blind moles
For we that are human
Know life's sad status
The light at the end
Could be a train coming at us
Those We Love Don't Listen
Last night I dreamt
I had wing-ed shoes
And could step into the air
And hover near
But unobserved
To loved ones in my care
I also had
A hold on time
And I could now traverse
So when I saw
Their foolish acts
I could put them in reverse
Then I awoke
Again a slave
To earth and time's dominion
And those I love
Still look up to me
And value my opinion
Their foolish acts
I seek to to stop
Occur despite my warning
For every day
Their lives reset
With my great love, this morning
For every day
Their lives reset
With God's great gift, this morning
Burning in Time
I am not who I was
Just a minute ago
I'm baking in time
But the burning is slow
I am not so burnt
That I really don't know
That what I am now
Is something to show
And what I now show
Is a yearning to know
What I shall be
As my yesterdays grow
My yesterdays flew
With spring's melting frost
No time for regrets
For opportunities lost
I am not what I was
Five decades past
When arrogant youth
Assumed it would last
At last now I know
That time's a slow burning
Wherein we all baste
And mistake it for yearning
We wallow in time
And soon come to know
That what we've become
Is just yesterday's glow
The cause and effect
Are decisions we make
So life is a gamble
Not a mistake
I am not a mistake
Just the sum of my acts
The choices I made
Are unchangeable facts
The facts I can't change
Make me what I've become
Imperfect but human
But better than some
I am not who I was
Just a lifetime ago
The scars of my burning
Are what give me that glow
Walking in fog
We grope through our days
Not seeing the signs
To feel through the haze
The fog is unnerving
We lose our own bearings
That frosty gray cover
Those signs are red herrings
The point of our journey
Is not to walk straight
Not every road's fork
Leads to a gate
Walking in fog
We grope for each other
Inside our lost tethers
We're sister and brother
The point of our journey
Is not that we fall
But that for each stumble
The signs we recall
For when the fog lifts
For others behind
Those signs that we leave
Will to others remind
That we can't see the future
The past is not pleasant
The best we can do
Is grope through the present
Solitude
We live alone
Inside our skulls
Peering out
Between the lulls
Of crashing waves
And private thought
Where only I's
Can see what's wrought
God made us live
This lonely time
Where only love
Can seek to mime
And let others in
Inside our skulls
Sharing life's lovely lulls
Life is...
Life is the dust
That came from the spark
That came from God's sneeze
And light from the dark
The bright roiling soup
With churning flagella
Tickled first life
With blind a capella
From single-celled swimmers
To tadpoles in motion
Light’s draw to wet lands
Who walked from the ocean
From the first fish who walked
To the first leaf was eaten
To that link we find missing
'Twixt us and God's Eden
Is life in God's Nature?
Is Nature in God?
Is life just primordial
Like a small clump of sod?
Or is it a gift?
To use as we might?
If so, whose gift is it?
Is it darkness or light?
And when light becomes darkness
When we relinquish the prize
Will we just sleep forever?
Or see through God's Eyes?
Like Punxsutawney Phil
My shadow it hangs still
As I stare into the winter of my life
The young man that I was
Has left me; is it because
He’s looking for a fresher start in life?
Each morning as I stare
I can only squint and glare
At the remnants and the wreckage of my past
The mirror does not lie
Time and youth they fly
While I walk, and realize at last
That my life was like a sun
For me to bask and run
In a universe that seemed limitless and wide
But that universe imploded
As relentless time exploded
And left me sagging, regretting many things
That could have been done right
With unselfish wisdom’s light
Instead of callow and careless youthful flings
But there are no second starts,
No rewinding of our hearts,
No turning back to the paths, those trails of tears
We weather what time brings,
Though it steals so many things;
We survive, though none of us escapes the years.
If days are shallow
Then nights are deep
Where we practice death
Each night we sleep
With fits of dreams
We see a fake life
Where reason flees
Replaced by strife
We toss and turn
And know our core
Jolt back to ourselves
For another day more
To greet the dawn
To suddenly feel
Night's practiced death
Was somehow unreal
With each day's new spark
And caffein’s kind breath
We bolt to our day
Until night's new practiced death
On the Mirror’s Other Side
On the mirror’s other side
There are things we cannot hide
Though everything’s reflected in reverse
And our wrinkles tell our age
They’re Father Time’s cruel wage
And each year we know it’s only getting worse
What’s reflected in that mirror
Is the end that’s coming nearer
As we take our final trips around the sun
Yet the clock behind the glass
Seems to turn back through the past
To the days when all our living had begun
It sweeps back memories
Of old friends and family
And the places that I traveled long ago
When my journey first began
There were races that I ran
And I faced the world with my dry wild oats to sow
Now the wild oats have congealed
And I’ve lost my youthful zeal
And replaced it with my mushy smooth oatmeal
As I gaze into that mirror
Through the steam I see things clearer
And decide that growing older’s really no big deal
Though my youthful days are gone
There’s one thing I count on
I’ve got the body of a handsome younger lout
But I have to give it back
It’s developed quite a crack
For I’ve had it all these years and worn it out
The Blank Page
All life’s a blank page
A partially lit stage
Where we bumble and scramble to fill it.
With baubles of vanity
And the dreamer’s insanity
We hop from the fire to the skillet.
We soak in our juices
Seek succor and truces
As blank pages fill up to the end.
The end’s the back cover
But we’re too scared to hover
Lest we find the last thing it will send.
If life is a stage
And acting's our wage
Then we're paid in a script not yet written..
The very last page
As death enters the stage
Is written--but hidden from sight
What smites us is blankness
Cruel fate’s lack of frankness
What awaits is the blankness of night
And the road’s a blank page
That leads from the stage
As we sing and we dance to its chorus.
Yet the darkness still gleams
As we cling to our dreams
Hints of the troubles before us