No Time - Poem by Raymond A. Foss

No Time
To think, to plan, to dream, to be ready
Reading slower as time goes on
Words blur in my cube, my mind
Does that sentence make any sense?
It didn’t the last 4 times
Why me? What penance must I pay
I actually did this to myself – what was I thinking?

Where is the logic to this holding?
Give me Scalia – a turn of phrase -
Minnick v. Mississippi – what a dissent
Prophylactic layer on prophylactic layer,
Towers and turrets on the Miranda castle.
Or parsed/pitchy jibe to wake me from the drudgery
When minority views are claimed as generally understood rule of law that…
The opaque words I’m trying to learn – gray on gray

Caffeine – a Moxie, if you please –
O great vending machine
Warm my lips and quiet my chill
As the night grows
Highlighter, fly to the key phrase –
Not cover the page

Wince in looking back
At my notes –
What was in my mind then?
Am I dyslexic? A-D-D? –
Clarity eludes me
Cryptic scratchings of reading at midnight
Don’t call on me!! – no clue what the rule
The worth of the case
The weight of authority – narrow to the case at hand – or Brown v. Board of Education (I & II)
Progeny too,
Or unpublished opinion?

No time
Class in minutes
Bag on shoulder
Time for coffee – black - again
Unprepared –
Wing it!