A Trip Through Time: Poems by Max Bess

By Max Bess

This information is not available as of this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664170315

Book preview

SO SMALL

Another winter’s gone, and then

Another summer’s here again.

I guess that’s eighty-eight in all

That I’ve been here - I feel so small

Compared to all that’s gone before

Or will go on, forevermore.

How many suns have shown their face

Since man first set foot on this place?

What multitudes have cast their eyes

On overwhelming, starlit skies

And wondered how they fit in place

In never-ending time and space?

And how far back do my roots go?

Or through what veins did my blood flow

From ancestors I must have had

Before my grandpa and my dad?

And how far on through history

Will anyone remember me?

The worlds so infinite, you see

Compared to us. What mystery

Will time unfold for one and all

After we’re gone - I feel so small

Compared to all that’s gone before

Or will go on, forevermore.

CONTEMPLATIONS

I contemplate in my mind’s eye,

The way my visions used to be,

Back when my heart was ever young,

And my restless soul was free,

Spurred on by curiosity,

Unhindered by propriety.

I tell myself I can’t go back,

To be the way I used to be,

Or do the things I longed to then.

I’ve channeled too much energy,

In quest of notoriety,

Or my niche in society.

In my old age I find myself,

Far from that place called ‘used to be’

Chained to a life I dare not change,

Those far horizons gone from me,

Suppressed by my maturity,

Enslaved by my security.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

Those childhood days are gone for good

I can’t go back - oh, if I could

I’d do the things I did before

And walk along the crick once more

Remove my shoes, take off my socks

Catch crawdads in among the rocks

Then perched upon the old floodgate

Fish neath the scum where sunfish wait.

And if I had naught else to do

I’d pass the time as I used to

I’d roam around through field and dell

Drink water from the flowing well

I’d cross the crick on fallen logs

And watch tadpoles becoming frogs

Or chunk a rock, or clod, or stick

At cotton mouths there in the crick.

I wouldn’t speed, I’d take my time

There’d be that well known hill to climb

And if my stomach called to me

I’d eat fruit from the paw paw tree

Then shoosh the pesky dragonfly

While laying back, face to the sky

At rest once more along the shore

Beneath the spreading sycamore.

And then from nothing save a whim

I’d strip right down and take a swim

In my old fav-rite swimming hole

And when I’d played out ev-ry role

And finished acting like a kid

I’d come on back and close the lid

And be content to live again

With renewed memories of then.

CAREFREE DAYS

Give me those carefree days of youth again

Of baby soft, unwrinkled, beardless chin.

Days filled with dusty lanes and dirty feet,

And ragged bottom pants with worn through seat.

Days filled with kick the can or hide and seek,

King o’the hill or swimmin in the creek,

While Old Sol seemed your ever present host,

With sunburned face and chest, as brown as toast.

Days filled with betcha can’t or take a dare,

Or racin with a pal from here to there

On calloused feet ne’er healed from countless cuts

Tanned brown, with stain from stompin black walnuts.

Days filled with mumblety-peg or knuckles down,

Or doin nothin much or messin roun,

Or fishing in the creek for goggle eyes,

Or take baseball and bat and knock out flies.

I was too anxious to grow up, I guess,

And start to climb the ladder of success.

I’d give a year of precious few in store

To live one day of carefree youth once more.

LITTLE BOY

Little boy with your sunburned, freckled face,

Who smiles with twinkling eye and dimpled cheek,

So void of care for proper social grace,

And forced by Mom to bathe once ev-ry week,

Don’t be in such a hurry to grow old,

You’ll soon enough be told to leave the fold.

Little boy shinnying up the sycamore,

With cuts and bruises covering your knee,

With no concern for what life has in store,

Or need for understanding things you see,

Don’t be in such a hurry to leave school,

You’ll soon enough be taken for a fool.

Little boy with your devil-may-care way,

With uncombed, cowlick hair and dirty feet,

With nothing more to do than pass the day,

The envy of each elder man you meet,

Don’t be in such a hurry to be free,

You’ll soon enough be looking back like me.

UNCLE PEARL’S PLACE

The most pleasant thoughts stored in my memory,

Are those days that I spent long the Salamonie.

Near the town