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Maudlin Moments

A poem by Judson Hamilton

Posted: June 19, 2009

In my more maudlin moments

I picture myself as a young

grieved widower

and wonder

would I stay here and dutifully wash your grave

on each holiday

as local custom dictates

and wander home slowly

with a weak heart and

arthritic knee

amongst the traffic noise

and pollution

would I mount our flight of stairs

having to pause in the wake of the

rabble-rousing youth

of our building

clutching the rail

white knuckled and feeble

I’d turn the key to

the interior of our apartment

like an empty fairground

in Autumn :

the freak show of our basement

where we never went for fear

of what the previous neighbor may have left

the shooting gallery of our kitchen

the barker’s box of our atrium

and the funhouse of our bedroom

with its stilled laughter still hanging in the air

all of this

wound down

packed away

in the small hours of morning

a rainstorm blows in

and I leave the windows open

and the lights off

Judson Hamilton -- be_mightee@hotmail.com -- lives in Wroclaw, Poland. More of his work can be found on the Web . He has a chapbook entitled ‘'Celebrity Slumbers” forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. He can be reached at be_mightee@hotmail.com

Spring 2009 Poetry:

RAPPERS AND THEIR GAME by Michael Cromwell
EDITOR'S CHOICE: Three poems by Robert Flanagan
OCCUPATION by Elizabeth Pavlov
ONE BLUE SHOE by Barbara De Franceshi
THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR by Jennifer Juneau
CASH CROP CONCRETE HOLLOW by Dave Migman
THE SWIMMERS by Oskar Hansen
MAUDLIN MOMENTS by Judson Hamilton
HORNETS by Christie Isler
BLACK MAGIC BOXES by John Tortora

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