POETRY of our TIMES by Alan Yount

Our class Poet Laureate, Alan Yount, has created more beautiful poetry.  The following is another published on www.jerryjazzmusician.com and repeated here for our classmates.  Alan is a very talented musician and poet and I enjoy reading and sharing his work.  On the Jerry Jazz Musician website you will find more of his work.  THANKS Alan for sharing!!! Wish I could share your music on my blog!  This one makes me miss my father even more than normal.  Below The Lines...  please see another poem, meant for New Year 2019 which I didn't get posted back then, but it's still worthy of a read.

The Lines On the Back of the Hand
glancing down, surprised somehow
lines had formed there
on the back of the hand
looking now like my father’s.
he once said
“I remember everything
just like it happened a week ago …
it’s so clear, how it was at eighteen
living on my parents’ farm.
yet it’s so strange
that some recent things
seem so far away.”
raising himself at the end
when he could no longer speak
he waved
that same hand to me:
drawing in the air a knowledge
only old men know
that final lineage traced onward
linking my hand with his …
.
by Alan Yount
………………….Previously published by Spring: the Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society. (academic journal). New series no. 5. Oct. 1996.

THEY SAY, ON NEW YEAR’S EVE
.
they say, on new year’s eve
……. you should make some new resolutions
…….……. for the new year.
.
they say, especially in your seventies
……. you should be doing something
…….……. in everyday, that you want to do, so much.
.
I say, I have
……. been lucky enough
…….……. to have heard the music for this.
.
in the last five years
……. it is more than enough to have written
……………………more poetry every day.
.
and to have all those thoughts
………….. come to me … again & again
…………..……. like I know, for sure, they will never end.
.
.
by
Alan Yount

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