Poetry: Selections From Colby Wrasse
Slide and Float
I slough
soul
Like the
snake sheds skin
To grow?
Amorphous,
amoral
An amoeba
I become
The first
compromise was fraught with fret and friction, but It greased the tracks
Now I
slide
Sans
integrity
untethered
from ambition
I float
with the winds that may catch me
As joyous
and free as a balloon on parade
Getting
Old With You
In turn,
we slowly drive each other to the doctor’s office
And sit
across from each other
Drinking
coffee in silence
We wait
for a call from the woman who was once our little girl
And think
about our son that never was
Some days
I will hide in the garage
Making
piles of sawdust to sweep
And I’ll
ask you about the weather again
Because I
forgot for the fifth time that day
Together
we wait for the mailman
And no
longer wonder about unlived possibilities
as they
fade to a blip out of sight
The
song still in me is now a whisper
The mullet
men of Matlacha
-When the
G-men shut them down-
They lit
their own boats on fire
Then for
good measure
Shot them
full of holes
and
watched them sink to the ocean floor below
The
patriots
Despite
love of country and their tea
Threw it
all overboard
For a
chance to start anew
And the
hippies so loved their trees
chained
to the trunks they stared down the dozers
Took their
beatings
Then
rinsed the mace from their eyes
The great
Gandhi marched 240 miles for a little salt
King
caught a bullet for his courage
And the
truth tellers who survive, die in exile
But Me?
No, not me
When the
chips are down.
I’ll grab
my ankles
and stare
at the ground
When the
tanks roll into town
I’ll
probably wave them on by
Take my
small marbles and slink silently away
Colby
Wrasse has worn
many hats in his life. None of them fit very well, but he has faked it well
enough to get by alright. Writing has flitted in and out of his life, like a
pesky house fly, never sitting still long enough to squash.