Joe Dolce: ‘From The Cavafy Villanelles’
From The Cavafy Villanelles
Fifty-nine Retired
Fifty-nine retired he hated clerking,
on his final day friends heard him exclaim—
At last! I am freed from the despised thing.
Three decades behind a desk accounting,
the mournful line of monotonous days,
fifty-nine retired, he hated clerking.
Months pressed into years such an endless string,
feeling like a poet only in name—
At last! I am freed from the despised thing.
He hoped to write more without stunted wings,
a hundred voices inside to declaim,
fifty-nine retired he hated clerking.
The Ministry of Irrigation’s din,
passing in distant echoes out of frame—
At last! I am freed from the despised thing.
More time for books and free time for writing,
more late night strolls to neighborhood cafés,
fifty-nine retired he hated clerking—
At last! I am freed from the despised thing.
At the Noisy Café
He sits alone at the noisy café,
old age a wound from a terrible knife—
he was younger it seems just…
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