Poetry
by Phil Brown
THE AFTERNOON IS LIKE …
The afternoon is like
a washed out impressionist painting.
The purple noon’s transparent might has been eclipsed
and now we enter that faded region
between noon and afternoon,
a bad land that is neither here nor there
Outside a high wind
chides hair, makes skirts billow like sails
while sensible creatures seek shade
Passing through this zone of nothingness
on the way to mid-afternoon is like
traversing a featureless desert
on a horse with no name.
Sounds like a song?
But there is no music in me.
Back at my desk
I wait for time to pass
hoping against hope
that it will pass quickly.
I can see the blanched landscape outside
still being worried by the wind.
Clouds pass by like errant sheep.
When the sun finally sinks
beyond the pale hills
I will be as grateful
as a painter.
by Phil Brown
