Sestina for the Middle of the Week

I.

I am too tired to write a poem today.

The earth is spinning slowly on its gears

And I am slouching toward the afternoon

With dreams that whisper through the sky like clouds
That sometimes cluster, sometimes dissipate—

So clouds and flowers and stars and I all fade.

II.

The color in my eye begins to fade.

I shall not be about the town today.

My strength, my will, my thought—all dissipate

While still the slow unfolding of the gears

Cranks on and cloaks my brain with sundry clouds:

I shall not write a poem this afternoon.

III.

Come walk with me sometime this afternoon

Along the stream where yellow violets fade

And emerald crickets crouch beneath the clouds.

Shall anyone intrude on us today?

Their work consumes them, turning at the gears

That stultify and kill: joy dissipates.

IV.

My energy and goals all dissipate

Before the tedium of afternoon

And staring into space, I sense the gears

Enjambed and cannot care, I fade

Into a dream of nothingness today.

The far horizon veiled with rising clouds.

V.

I used to think these moods were clouds

That I could just ignore; they’d dissipate

If only I could fake it for today

Like counterfeiting time, the afternoon

A currency to squander lest it fade,

Crushed to nothing by the heedless gears.

VI.

A field of daisies—simple petaled gears,

That dip and wave in meadows while the clouds

Sail overhead—great thoughts that soon will fade

And at the sunset’s coming dissipate

All time’s been whiled away; the afternoon

Is gone. It never comes again: Today.

VII.

Grind on then, gears and hours, and dissipate

The gloomy clouds lingering all afternoon.

Dreams fade. And still…I have no poem today