Author Archives: Timothy P. Schilling

Sentimental ditty about a rock-solid someone

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I thought I’d visit my neighbor

instead of myself. I’d seen him sitting there

many a time, in the window,

bent over his lunch. And yes,

Come in, he said, I see you go by.

What’s gone by in him is 92 years,

51 of which were spent playing

trombone

in the Utrecht City Orchestra.

In the war they stuck him

in a German munitions factory,

where the Poles and the French and the Dutch

were all saboteurs,

and the boss, a German,

was a pretty good guy.

This neighbor, Piet,

has pictures of the boss’s daughter.

He’s lived in that house for 60 years.

He’s got an open leg

and can’t go out. But he’s

sweet as sunshine,

shining while we make our way.

On seeing, without the aid of John or Lear

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I uncoupled the two eye-beams

and sent them in search of what

I did not know. This proved to be

where people have their lunch,

corners with not a lot,

and rafter bats.

PIN codes were not my concern,

nor were people in

various states of undress.

I’d liked to have seen, however,

the insides of the latter,

or rather,

the insides of their insides.

But alas! My beams are bogus beams

whose insights couldn’t be flatter.

Pine Box

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First the incense,

then the Pie Jesu.

“His life was a bell,”

the deacon said,

“and the Spirit the clapper.”

(We passed her, pulling the rope.

You rang as we gathered round.)

The sun shone, and in it

I saw your Annie,

hardened but serene

from the long, depleting dying.

And the pine box – yes,

what  better wood

to leave the world?

 

Chris Coppens, R.I.P.