Dregs and Leavings / by Brian Kunde

Dregs and Leavings
by Brian Kunde

We’re at the bottom of the box,
The tag-end of the sack.
The weary muse no longer rocks.
The tautened verses slack.

It wasn’t meant to be this way,
But that’s the poem biz;
Our flights are stranded every day,
And that’s the way it is.

Though often we are cleared to go,
And taxi off to soar,
They tell us just as often “No,
You’re grounded as before.”

Our ship’s blockaded here, too long
Kept in the coastal trade,
And lemon-sour our shanty song—
I’m serving lemonade.

* * * * *

Dregs and Leavings

from Adrift in the Wreckage : Poems, 1st ed., Dec. 2011.
An earlier version appeared in the chapbook
All-too-occasional Verses, Dec. 2005.

1st web edition posted 1/6/2012.