Long Shots Lost | Richard Rauch

1. long shots

What else was there to do
With edgy triangles
Tippling over squares everywhere,
Cornered in an angular city.
No spheres stood a cherry’s chance
Against the cubes, rolling
Away like little lost balls
Tinkling over the ice,
Diminishing in the distance
Through an emptying glass
Of long shots lost.

2. in a corner

On a floor in a corner
In an office crumpled up
Lies a man with a memo
In his hand, filled with lies,
All the details dear to heart,
Clutching vainly at its chest,
On a floor in an office
In a corner crumpled up.

3. freed-

A signature, exhaling and rising,
Standing straight, note folded, positioned, left,
Purposeful walk out to the balcony,
Up and over the railing without pause
And smiling?

                       a headfirst,
                                   chest out
                                             swan dive

Gracefully through the air, down ten stories:
Shout of joy, compelling, summarizing
Forty-seven years in three seconds and
A long last instant of supreme freed-