Times Turn into Times Turned Over in Future Times

Can you remember back to a time when you were only mere days removed from getting high praise for walking on two legs?

Can you recall, those early moments in the kitchen, when you’d stare up high at those marble countertops and dream of seeing what exists beyond its aerie reach?

Have you forgotten, how disappointed you were, when you found out it wasn’t all you’re imagination painted it to be?

Whatever happened to all the comparisons?

     “Oh, how talented you’re child is, he’ll be the next Hemmingway or Hawthorne for sure”

“Oh, what amazing athleticism you’re kid possesses.  When I look at him I see the next Jackie Robinson, Walter Payton.  He reminds me a lot of Ty Cobb, as if they themselves were around to have watched him play”

“ You’re little boy has such an imagination.  He’s so entertaining. I see a younger version of Bruce Lee, maybe Errol Flynn”

When was the last time your scribbly-scrawled blots of crayon were hung up on the fridge?  When was the last time you’re great aunt called you her little Picasso or Van Gogh, not even considering what their backstory’s were?  When was the last time your grandfather pulled a quarter from your ear, and you thought you were witnessing something bigger than the world itself?

Life gets in the way.  Doesn’t it?

And you close the door behind you.  Scuffing the snow off from your dirty boot soles, greeting those inside, warmly, yet complaining about the travails you endured to simply make it to their house.  And then, you see the little one, and you say, glowing from ear to ear, “How’s my little Marilyn today?” and she shyly shrugs her shoulders…. that’s when you pull a dollar from her hair, as if it had been hiding out in those blonde curls all the day.

Over at D'verse, for Meeting the Bar this past Thursday. Victoria offered up the discussion about exploring childhood and it's memories.  I've been really sick this week, just feeling a bit better upon waking up a few hours ago, so I'm hoping the meds are working.  In any case, I missed joining the party, yet thought I'd still take part in the prompt.  I actually had a piece that I had started a long time back that fit this theme rather well.  

The idea of how children's perspectives change and how their expectations alter upon finding some answers interests me.  I wrote the second question/stanza a while back and filled in the rest of this piece from there for this discussion.  If you haven't already, I urge you all to stop on by D'Verse, read Victoria's article and check out the poems shared, as you can do for the other linked discussions as well.  

The Whippet

A whippet ran past me along the boardwalk.

I never saw one outside of those shows where

they prance about so unnaturally.

I chased it down, as far as I could,

but the slope was steep and

the walk had stopped, at the point

where once the water stood

Fresh and blue,

I choose to remember things

as they were

Yet for that dog,

it moved so fast,

my only memory

continues as a blur

Those Missing Moments

As time shifts measure

We grey, our lines they

Fray and often tether

Us into a cryogenic state

Of dystopian doldrums without the

Stagnation of dramatic applause

As hours dwell under such a spell

We dream how things once were,

Knowing the ending, and what worked,

We could change the entire thing time

And again….Pssst!  If you do it enough times

You’re memories change as well, believing what you choose to tell it—sad but true…but studies prove this is not only possible, but probable in many instances….so guess there is something to the old think and get rich stuff….hmmm

I miss the good old days…. I miss the experience

I miss the growth; I miss the adventures that didn’t really

Feel like that’s exactly what they’d be

There was this girl…there’s always a girl isn’t there?

I remember how she was so in love with me…I laugh now,

How this young Freshman girl saw this scrawny teen, and how cool she thought I was, simply by hanging out with a bunch of Mathelete’s and to able to hold my own, in an arena that the at first glance would construct plausible knee-jerk reactions, indicating that I would fail or at best not fair too well…How she loved it when I looked her in the eyes, and told her it was in the sine’s, how I was there for her, and the polynomials…Which always sparked a well placed peck upon the cheek and nothing else, right then and there—Hey she was a good girl!

I miss the hope the future promised…what to do, what to do…ah, If only I knew then, what I know now, how many different things I would do different…yet, still, failures and all, I truly wonder, and can’t answer of course, what would I do?  If it meant sacrificing the positive one or two memories that are cherished so, to delete the negative from the old memory chest?  What would I do…?

I miss so many things

I miss actually buying records and cassettes, CD’s weren’t bad either, but only when they came in the long boxes, still have some up in the attic, but not as many as I wish I would’ve saved…I miss the weekly spree at the comic shop, getting lost in all the superheros tales of love, death, peril, escape and salvation…I miss those unwrapped boxes of cards, throwing out the old stale gum…I miss the Atari 2600, heck, I still have a pong, but really, it’s nostalgic now, but that doesn’t mean it’s as fun as it once was…I miss skipping school and watching soaps with my mom all day….and of course the game shows that would come on before the primetime shows would come out to play…

I miss a lot…but

Then again…I bet most miss what’s behind them I just don’t want to miss what may await…hopefully in 20, 30 perhaps 40 years down the road, I’ll be able to look back, find the linchpin moment that turned around this show, and once again the adventures would come, breeding happiness all at once…yeah…I miss those memories yet to come.

I missed out on Stu's Poetics prompt at D'verse this weekend.  To be honest, I fell asleep really early last night, woke up in the middle of the night, wasn't up for new writing and then couldn't seem to find my way on line tonight until it was too late to link up at the big show.  But, I highly recommend checking out Stu's write up and taking in some or all of the amazing Missing moments shared by the poets there.  

Pine Box

listen to ‘Pine Box’ on Audioboo

Sleeping in a pine box

thinking about the other day

sleeping in a pine box

dreaming that this time

it’ll all turn out some other way

It’s sad how fast we deteriorate

breaking free, rotting unto the lost domains

unprepared for what will be claimed

we grow resigned in the mannerisms of loneliness and loss

where stagnating shards fragment and shape our future plots

Sleeping in a pine box

thinking about the others

sleeping in a pine box

all the father’s, daughters, sons and mothers

It’s amazing how things often come down

to the number of correct decisions we make,

the one’s we never would have made

if not for one mistake, often an accidental turn

we, at the time, deemed to be entirely incorrect

And we never would have had the opportunities

to live and to love, to bleed and to sweat

all those intangible emotions that

would not be available now, or

would not be available in the innumerable futures yet to come

But the erroneous turn we did commit

and the flaw will forever be remembered

when necessary, for sensorial exhumation

Sleeping in a pine box

thinking about the other day

sleeping in a pine box

eyes closed yet open, wide as they’ve ever stayed

And in these containers

we hold our cherished mistakes

as one would keepsake any artifact

that holds close the unmeasured meanings

ever available for conjuring crucial memories lost but never forgotten…in a pine box

Carnie

listen to ‘Carnie’ on Audioboo

I’m hoping to get to where

I have to be—without using

crescendo’s descriptive

property

The smells of traveling folk

irradiate definition

procure inhibitory realms

and guide the soul to

where, all’s cast unto pools

of a tolerant breed

Mystics, madmen, gypsy, seers of

romani lore, clashing western

culture with their crystalline torrents

of adrenalin

Pulsing…

Eddy’s, whirlwinds, the vortex

and a single parasol—

 swirling with purposeful nonchalance,

through each element near and far,

stealing pieces imprisoned in, every rotation

another sensation floods your face, past the eyes,

through internal trellises, residing

into crescent shells, of a 

Once magnifying moment

in unbridled pleasantry…

Sounds…depress the catalytic

for they can listen but not revel

in the auditory repetitions, left to

Taste, funnel cakes and honey-sex

on display, waiting for your foreign

Caress, unto this sport of touch that will never tell

of

Ticket stubs—torn—

turnstiles, in need

Of lubrication—

still frozen since 1969

For Poetics this week over at D'Verse, the uber-creative Claudia Schoenfeld is hosting, and presents us with the challenge of composing a piece surrounding Fun Fairs, or how they say it where she's from, Jahrmarkt, which has such a better ring, and lets face it, is such a cooler word than Fair, Fun Fair, or even Carnival.  So head on over, take everything in, and dream back upon your own experiences and memories, and compose a Jahrmarkt poem of your own.  But, please, make sure you link it up, so we can all live vicariously through your words.