Foster’s “An Empty Glass”

VICKSBURG, Miss. (Vicksburg Daily News) – The year was 1957, and Dongieux Foster was just 21 years old. Foster and his friends were adults according to the law, but they still had long lives and promising futures ahead of them.

All but one…

For one of the young men, it was the beginning of a very long and, ultimately, tragic end.

Foster would witness one young man experience a tragedy so immense that it caused him to give up all hope and desire to have a productive life. Foster could do nothing but watch from the background as that young man willingly succumbed to an empty existence at the bottom of an even emptier bottle.

AN EMPTY GLASS

A broken dream
a shattered star
an empty glass
on a silver bar

a drunkard’s prayer
a beggars plight
an empty day
a lonely night

this is my life
I’ve lived for years
a heartbroken lad
eyes filled with tears

It was just a few years ago
when I was just a young man
I asked a beautiful young girl
to wear my wedding band

yes she said in a voice so sweet
then it was time to set the date
for a Sunday afternoon in December
never dreaming it would be to late

for just a few days before we were to wed
a car was roaring down highway sixty one
they didn’t really mean any harm
just a bunch of kids out having fun

then there were screaming tires
then came that awful sickening crash
when the dust and smoke had cleared
it left the highway covered with trash

there on the side of the highway she lay
her red hair mixed with blood in the light
I walked over and softly spoke her name
but she just lay there so awful quiet

I knelt down and softly spoke her name
and gently touched her blood stained skin
my heart slowly died that fateful night
when all my dreams came to an end

I could never forget that awful day
when they carried my love away
a broken heart that will never heal
life is gone and there’s nothing to say

just a broken dream
a shattered star
an empty glass
on a silver bar

This is the thirteenth poem in a series that 85-year-old Dongieux Foster of Satartia has allowed us to share with our readers.

See also:

• The Thornell Sisters
• A Stroll in the Moonlight
• In the Garden
• Footprints in the Snow
• Where the Orchids Bloom
• Dark and Painful Journey
• Hour of Decision
• The Day of the Storm
• To Smell a Rose
• The Heavens
• For the Joy of Man
• The Desert Sand