Why Did You Come? Poem by James Walter Orr

If you never came for the reason I came,
Then goodbye, adios, get along:
Are these words of a comic, philosopher's words,
Or the words of a sad country song?
If I do not know what you want me to know,
Then don't listen, and don't hear me out:
Just laugh in my face at my absence of grace
Without checking out what I'm about.

If I do not do what you want me to do,
Or play the games you want to play,
Just turn off the jukebox and don't hear the song,
For beyond that I've nothing to say.
The semester is over and school has turned out,
And the last of the classes are through.
Just turn off the juke box and don't hear the song.
Just shut down the sound and the view.

The blind, clumsy reaching of callused old hands,
Can knock the vase off of the shelf,
And all we can do then is pick up the shards,
And polish what's left of our self.
If we fumble the deck while we're dealing the hand,
We can lay out some poor hands of cards,
And the lesson we learn is to watch what we turn,
And to always pay heed to our guards.