When I was dumb and twenty
by jotadavida
Posted to Action Poetry on 2001-08-20 18:07:00
money mad
squealing tires
turbo teenage fires
wrecking meat and wires
wonder wheels
circle plenty
those
descending parts of
animal crotches
sniffing each other so
furiously in the dark
the prize of unzipped flies
in the backseat of our
twisting furry love
so unfraid to taste
tomorrow’s tender
never-ending flesh
when it came at last
the morning found us
still swimming inside each
other’s bones
eternal eyes see the
electric
transoceanic brains
continents of love
so anatomically correct
so on fire the spires like
neon spines
of our kiddie
desires
untested
yet true
hypnotized
butterflies on fire
fly away
I watched them fly away
fish they sparkled so and
swam in lips of laughter
unhurried
we held hands
along the banks
of dappled leaves
and holy pebble streams
heaven happy
to just get back
wet in wonder
smiling
when
we
were
twenty
young
swimming in the dark
together
until the sun came up
when we were once and twenty
I still see the fish
swimming blue green sparks
in dusky
sweating water
outside our
bending window
lovers were we then
and you, you pleasured me
you did
your body fires
bellied me to ground
grinding down
beside the stream of fish
in water breathe through
gills of water counting
salmon steps
that brings upstream
the silver water and
floating eggs
flashing in the sun
so hot
at noon
it was
turtle cool
and when even the rocks melted
by our teenage beating hearts
began to sing
our evening morning sun
gone
balloons raised up in
secret signals from
our silly songs
we raised our faces
and felt the noon
upon our backs
forever young
at twenty
now
just
an endless
shamed faced
river running
away
from love
is it
too late or is
yesterday’s tomorrow’s
man the one I face at dawn
he the one I watched in
the mourning of his dried up world
the life I once knew
at twenty young
and yet the
stars
remember stars and moonlight fire
remember? do you remember?
o wasted youth
where have you gone
in my evening slumber?
finding me
fighting me
kill me now grief forever
crime touches me not
nor experience taught me much
no matter right or wrong
today is
and today is
shorter, doesn’t wait
never stays
no matter how
far you might run along
and try to chase her
when you were twenty once
good bye you think but twice
at forty
you grimace
grin
your jaw
and tilt the bottle up
so what the
smack
and
all that weedy shit
you smoked
the candy candy
you put up your nose
midnight mirrors raised
for the tree men
bending green and tossed
waving at you
mad from behind the foil draped
forest windows of the lost
your little
girl
would she be free
like you tonight
she thought
when you, like her, at twenty, barking mad?
yeah so
now
she don’t care
you can’t teach her nothin
no way
nothing that a bad
case of the blues
won’t wash away
‘cept help her now
when she be forty
wandering like you
now when you were
twenty
so simple at
twenty
now, you, fat and sixty
bald and laughing
in your easy chair
so gravely grave and
not! but
sayin’
gravely dear
what ever
took you so long?
to find out
hoo dammer!
slap those knees
at twenty one times three
me, cooking a can of
cheap spaghettie
turning round to see
you there freckled, smiling
puzzled
somewhere still near
not too far away
from my tv snoring
your head now wondering
aloud at the tunes
inside your papa’s
loco head
me turning and saying
what ever made
you think that I
in the hippie hell
ever ever knew
what it
was
all about?
me
now
half
way
there
it took me so long
to find out
when to begin
i found out
did you
did you, my precious
and only daughter?
then you laughed
threw back your angel head
and at the top of your lungs you yelled and said:
“I can dig it!”
When you, my daughter, told me that
in our secret family fever
even as the sirens in our
heads grew louder
you said in my ear:
“Papa, I can dig it!”
we laughed and danced and cried
until dawn
god, I miss your mother