The Will-O’-the-Wisp

by Simon Yates

Simon Yates is a first-year PPCC student who also attends Palmer Ridge High School. He will be enlisted as a Marine within the Delayed Entry Program and ships out next year. Other than playing with his family’s two Great Dane pups, you might see Simon messing with his Battlebot, spending time with his friends and family, painting abstract art, or simply enjoying the present moment.

Have you ever had that idea

That great marvelous idea

Except when you search your

Treasure trove of memories

A cobweb and old remedies

Are all that’s left in that drawer?

Or you come across some old friend

Long gone from recollection’s end

That face, you remember that face

Why can’t you find a name to match

That face? You dig, pull, root, and scratch

To find the name that you misplaced.

That time you came to the kitchen

A purpose so profound, which was to pitch in

Because you were tired, or un-wired

But when you step upon the wooden floor

You can’t remember what you came here for

Standing there, you wonder, “What was it that I desired?”

All these things one knows all too well

Frustration prolongs, but no luck to retell

Although this scene comes and goes

Does one know equally of this instance?

A lily blossom, so fragile and of such subsistence

Caressed so gently, but brimming in non-repose

Held to the chest, feeling its breath

That blissful joy coming oh so close, but living death

It becomes. Still hope he holds it close, tightly grasped,

Unbeknownst, it disappears, a wisp in the night

At his open palm he grimaces at the sight

Burns and pooling blood

Around blackened

Glass, shattered

He clenched the glass

In his tender flesh, slicing

His nerves, writhing

A crucible of emotion

Was always a doomed notion

I present to you, for a cent

The Will-o-the-Wisp

Ladies and Gents