Yellow Caution Lights

Sun’s golden last grasp
reflecting pink strips in icy pools and black angular ruts
a world lifted up in tattered shreds dangling on wet branches.

Following the ghost who knocks on corridors
Carrying red roses, regrets and pictures of youth’s motley parade
The string of steps day after day
Horns, bells, whistles
The clanging gang of days---the year
Hordes who hammer schemes
Into concrete towers
Floating nimbly
In morning mist
Beckoning.

To cancel all of our debts in one final toss
All of the silver
all of the pride
I reach out for his boney hand
But he flees…

Only melody lingers
Only fingers fretting this guitar
A spectral song to right this wrong
The yellowed page
Signed and tossed away
A trail of silently flung petals.
Left behind in a yellow trail of caution in the smoldering dusk.