“Snowbound”

c.2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-20)

Snowed in, contemplating my sins

Failing, falling

An old friend is calling

She wants to repeat

Stories of life by the lake

Her moment of respite

From trudging through shit

Lost on the treadmill of working souls

A pace I no longer keep

This is the postmodern me

Watching Reverend X on TV

Laughing like ‘The Count’ on Sesame Street

Drinking early, sleeping late

Phone home

I sit here alone

Snowed in, it’s happened again

My driveway draped with doom?

No, I’m here in the living room

Writing of my winter solitude

Tapping

Texting

Testing the connection

From author to critic

A scribe most prolific

Fireplace on the flatscreen

Safe from smoke

If I can find the remote

The morning gives me hope

Snowed in, no bourbon or gin

The potion I seek

Is a tale written in Greek

To be quoted by chance

By a writer for an east-coast rag

Casually spun like a Frisbee

Spinning, soaring

An odyssey

Of sailing the seven seas

Battling a pandemic disease

Swinging like Tarzan

From tree to tree

And ending up in Ohio

On disability

Snowed in, away from my friends

Glad for a moment to reflect

To hit the keys is like glorious sex

Words rush in rhyme

Each breath in a cadence

Set before the start of time

Deep in my DNA

A code of simplicity

To the work, to the work

Sing out, son

Let your praise be heard!

Snowed in, stocked up kitchen

No worry over sustenance and snacks

I’ve already packed

The things that I lacked

A cartographers crest

The results of my COVID test

A butterfly net

Other things I forget

Crib notes and mail-in votes

A scratchy patchy in my throat

A glass-bottom boat

Borrowed from Doris Day

A turn of phrase

Left in a locker on the turnpike

With a lucky locket and a railroad spike

Snowed in, my porch is covered again

Silent repose

All week in my clothes

Drinking with a prize-fighter

Another all-nighter

A delight for this writer

Like Tom McCahill driving a ‘59 Ford

Never bored

Pipe-smoking poet at the wheel

Scribbling notes about horsepower and road feel

I’d never get away with this

With a prevailing mood of summer bliss

Thank goodness for the storm that hit

Here I sit

Snowed in, my friend is calling again

She’s a Golden Girls devotee

Thinks my habit is an oddity

To joyfully jot lines of a plot

Seems like madness

Not a personal success

“I like you, you’re weird!”

She laughs while I sip my beer

Phone to phone

Each of us on the wire

Her on a mattress

And me by my video fire

Tripping on a verbal voyage

Turning the page

Lost after the holiday

Snowed in, up to my chin

A prime platter of Plato

A hippie manifesto

Leftover scraps

Street-smart ghetto raps

I fill the early morning hours

With iPhone taps

Banter from the temple cantor

Plucks from a plectrum, struck

I’m a newspaper hack

Out-of-work as a matter of fact

My byline is busted

Been sidelined

But on I write

Through this dark December night

Snowed in, chances growing thin

Fourteen degrees

Debilitated knees

Neighbor praying the Rosary

Out east by the county line

The endurance of my conscious mind

Is tested by a trick from 1969

A remark made in jest

I remember it best

When sat here with the morning yet to arrive

Let the nightbird fly

Snowed in, far from my kin

The yard is a fortress wall

I scale with dreams and alcohol

Distant domes

I see other homes

Shadows sheath the secrets, beneath 

Lift the curtains

Take a peek

There’s a story here to complete

Of priorities that poke

A neighborhood un-woke

Deals and discount days

Cigarettes from the Circle K

I’m glad they stay away

For long enough to compose

A line of verse, a thought to close

One kiss from my muse

One glimmer from the other side of the mirror

A cry I heard

An antiquarian word

Snowed in, flakes falling to the brim

Sunrise is near

My inspiration will disappear

With light at the treetops

This cycle will stop

I’ll surrender this hour, sadly

No longer safe and solitary

Jonesing for jive

Keeping hope alive

I want another ride

On the carousel of pens-in-hand

And the heel-click of marching bands

On this rock, I make my stand

This is my plan

Tonight, tonight

I’ll return to the candlelight

Sit and stare from my chair

With my fireplace, faux, and gifts to bestow

Peering deep

Into the cosmos

I’ve got to know

What comes next

Written on my iPhone SE