‘Dead Poet’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore

Dead Poet

Of what I was, not much remains,
but that which does, indeed still strains
to craft and pen a poem sweet,
as I did when my heart did beat.
I’m cold and stiff, yet still I yearn!
(It seems as if I’ll never learn!)
My best refrains, fraught with despair,
for through my veins runs naught but air.
Beneath this mound of earth and stones,
the only sound, my clacking bones?
Now mine to love for all of time;
the echoes of unwritten rhyme.
A sonnet for an epitaph?
There are no more—don’t make me laugh!

So Very Small

Of we who do bemoan the past,
in bitterness our lives are cast –
vast graveyards of the heretofore;
of that which was and is no more.

Futility, our stock-in-trade;
frustration then, our wages paid.
What fools indeed, these mortals be!
The Prankster speaks of you and me.

It’s true that all the world’s a stage –
the players, we of every age.
The dawn of time, the curtain rose.
When it will fall, God only knows.

So very small, the parts we play.
So sad to squander them away.

A Haiku

Wise is he who sees
The forest beyond the trees
And brings a chain saw

I was hungry …

after Matthew 25:42

“Food is better than money” he said.
I told him “no” and I shook my head.
When I got home, these words I read:
“I was hungry and you did not feed Me.”

He was huddled right in front of me
and my shopping bags were plain to see –
how cold and callous can I be?
“I was hungry and you did not feed Me.”

Forgive me for what I failed to do
for every word that You say is true.
I know now it was really You.
“I was hungry and you did not feed Me.”

Joe Tessitore is a retired New York City resident and poet. 

(Photo in post body by Joe Tessitore)