I used to mock my father and his chums
for getting up early on Sunday morning
and drinking coffee at a local spot
but now I’m one of those chumps.
No one cares about my old humiliations
but they go on dragging through my sleep
like a string of empty tin cans rattling
behind an abandoned car.
It’s like this: just when you think
you have forgotten that red-haired girl
who left you stranded in a parking lot
forty years ago, you wake up
early enough to see her disappearing
around the corner of your dream
on someone else’s motorcycle
roaring onto the highway at sunrise.
And so now I’m sitting in a dimly lit
caffull of early morning risers
where the windows are covered with soot
and the coffee is warm and bitter.
Edward Hirsch
______________________________________________________________
I used to mock everyone and their
mums, no matter how nice they might have been.
Usually for not doing things I
would do, or rather want them to you see
I was young, rude and thought I was almighty.
I went through life spoiled for a bit but
sooner or later “all things seem to end,”
but in this case it was good. Not so much
on these present days I’m living though.
Everyone cares about my old humiliations.
They go on treading through the garden of
my very heart. forgetting to weed it.
Like a set of chimes on a sunny day
ring the thoughts these people planted in me.
It’s like this: just when you seem to think
everything was forgotten and put to rest,
another old friend reminds you of the past.
Forty years from now this won’t matter but,
in this moment it does, for no apparent reason.
I didn’t know that day I tripped was world
breaking news, but I’m glad I could keep you
informed and interested in my
trials and tribulations I faced today.
early enough in the day I hear them,
plotting their stories and the flashing of
all the cameras my paparazzi have.
I dodge them around every corner
and through every thought in my dream.
The roaring of the motorcycle made
me “come to” and so I woke refreshed.
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