Robert M. Simmons  

from Added Entries (Poems 1991- )   

               Walter's Postmeridian

Perched on the windswept pinnacle

of linear time,

above the stunted tundra

of unmet expectations,

beneath the weighty rucksack

of lofty intent,

Walter lays aside his notebook,

clicks on his vintage Pioneer stereo,

slips Fannie Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words

into his CD player

and opens his leather-bound edition

of Keats's poems.

The stereo is concealed

in a claw-foot, mahogany sideboard,

and the parlor,

with its sunset watercolors

by Paskell, Harlow

and other members of the Boston Art Club,

its oak-framed sepia photograph

of Roman ruins,

its faux mantle with Italian tiles

and bas-relief bronze plate,

its Eastlake and Hunzinger chairs

with lace antimacassars

and its April 1896 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine,

is dimly lit

by the frosty white light

of a winter afternoon.

The black ink of the poet's words

on the parchment page,

the gentle rise and fall of musical notes

and light, Vermeer-like

spilling through the window

induce a rush of random reverie.

Home for the weekend from Deerfield

he removes his blazer and necktie.

Golden October sunlight

glistens on the slate roof

of the Tudor house

and gleams through the burnt orange leaves

of maples that border the driveway.

Ivory Joe Hunter

is singing "Since I Met You Baby"

on the satchel-sized Zenith portable radio

reminding him of last summer

driving up the coast with his father

in the pearl and powder blue

Packard Caribbean

and playing tennis in whites

with local girls

on red clay courts in Maine.

He opens the yellow can of Simoniz

and rubs honey-colored wax

onto the sculptured fenders

and louvered hood

of his cream-colored MG roadster,

buffing the painted surfaces

with a large piece of chamois.

The chrome-plated radiator frame,

hemispheric headlamp casings,

bumpers and luggage rack

are also carefully polished.

His father is sitting in an easy chair

with a floral slipcover,

smoking a Camel cigarette,

watching the Red Sox

on a black and white

General Electric console

as Ted Williams homers in the ninth

winning the game,

and now he is the poet

on that day almost two centuries ago

standing in the British Museum

before the Elgin Marbles

when he is distracted

by the repeating tune

of an itinerant ice cream man

through the open window,

while the parlor fades to darkness

with the setting of the sun.

                      © 2003 by Robert M. Simmons

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Subjects: poems about, beauty, imagination, reveries, memories, character studies, poetry, poems

Walter's Postmeridian