Old Poets Poem by Smoky Hoss

The old poets
sit drinking and conversing.
Speaking with long words; parts
of forgotten phrases, and occasional cursing.
There was among them another day, when
they thought they knew
precisely what to say, what to do.
But time, with the help of wine
has taken up the words.
Stealing their once steady voice
no longer the stronger, nor even again to be heard.
Now, the old poets gather round early
in narrow dusty bars, looking
far off, and puffing fat cigars.
Satisfied to simply sit and sip, upon
the failing wine, and fleeting time.
Watching, as both run dangerously low, like
the finish of a long and
melancholy picture show.
Time and wine, words and birds, all
fly so quickly by.
Going south with a closed mouth
the verbs and nouns of the past fall broken, and
are no longer sacramentally spoken.
What once moved so fine, within these aged poetic minds
flows now, no less, throughout each new day.
It turns old bodies weak, yet goes on bearing
the delicate souls like gold, further and further away.