On The Last Night Of My 40s
On the last night of my 40s
I had dinner with my former wife
and my current sister.
French dips and Thai wings
in a 19th-century Pennsylvania tavern.
I talked with a friend about chess,
traded jokes with my son,
and listened to the crickets
sing through a gentle rain.
Tomorrow is the big day.
A half-century.
I’m not where I thought I’d be.
But I’m still here, and that counts.
/ / /
9 September 2023
State College PA
This is poem 50 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Category: 50 Days Till 50 Years
Airwaves
When the Ford Festiva’s tape deck broke
it was all radio, all the time.
The Afghan Whigs & Goo Goo Dolls
& Blues Traveler & Tracy Chapman
& Alannis Morissette & Jewel
& Dishwalla & Deep Blue Something
& Coolio & Hootie & The Blowfish
& Oasis & No Doubt & The Bodeans
& Natalie Merchant & Melissa Etheridge.
Driving the meanish streets of Tucson
with a styrofoam container of burritos
on the passenger seat, coming home
from a gig at 2 a.m. to an empty apartment,
and later to a less empty one.
/ / /
8 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 49 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentAll My Poems Are Sad
All my poems are sad.
Even the happy ones.
I should have written
a few happy happy poems.
But I didn’t. Just
all these sad little guys.
Slumped on couches,
staring into the middle distance.
Whatever that means.
Sometimes I try to give
one of my poems
a piece of yellow cake
with chocolate frosting,
which, coincidentally,
is also my favorite.
I give it to the poem
and he takes a bite
and makes a brave show
of smiling, but I know.
I know.
/ / /
7 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 48 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Comment“Back On The Chain Gang” / “Fotos y Recuerdos”
I know this song because of Selena,
which is odd because I seem more
like a Pretenders guy at first glance.
You were rehabbing houses in Tucson,
I was playing nights in a latin dance band.
We were listening to a lot of music in Spanish.
When she died it was like a day of mourning
settled on the city. The guys you worked with
sang along to her songs on the radio and cried.
We moved to Japan and watched
Jennifer Lopez (a new name to both of us)
play Selena in the movie.
We rode the trains to work, probably
the only people on the Yamanote Line
swaying gently to “Como la Flor.”
All these years later I still think of
late-night burrito runs to Los Betos
when I hear her music, or else
watching Domino sleeping in a patch of sun
on the floor of our apartment in Yokohama.
Photos and memories.
/ / /
6 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 47 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentPlaylist
“Jackie And Wilson”
is on my son’s playlist.
Suddenly I’m in our car,
on the way to Livingston,
singing along with you,
hands clasped on your lap
or mine.
I almost asked him to skip it,
but I didn’t feel like saying why,
so I kept quiet and thought of you
until my breath returned to normal.
/ / /
5 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 46 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
When We Come To It
The road had been there since at least the 1830s,
if the cornerstone on the red farmhouse was right.
At some point it had been diverted up the hill,
rendering the little concrete bridge obsolete.
The boy had moved there in the 80s, into a log home
on what had been a vacant bit of hillside.
He found the bridge one day while exploring past the pond.
When he found the bridge, he found the creek.
It led back into acres of forest, all the way to the 4-H camp.
He followed the twisting water into the trees,
the sun’s rays reaching, but only just.
A few years later he brought a city kid out there.
The kid jumped out onto a tree limb hanging
over the water; the limb sprang up and tossed the kid
several feet. He was surprised but not hurt,
so neither of them mentioned it when they got back.
The boy had many adventures among the trees:
daring escapes and forest battles and wilderness hikes.
Even when somebody bought the plot of land next door,
he still snuck into the forest and followed the water.
Sometimes in the summer he could hear the PA system
from the 4-H camp, calling the campers to lunch or dinner.
Eventually he grew up and stopped visiting the bridge
and the creek and the forest. Then the house was sold.
The new owners changed the color.
/ / /
4 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 45 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentHappy Birthday
It wasn’t all bad.
There were lots of nice moments.
Eventually, though,
the negative outweighed the positive.
Love shouldn’t be conditional.
At least not a mother’s love.
I was not always blameless,
but I was always your son.
I went to therapy.
I took my meds.
I meditated.
I tried.
You grew, too, in some ways,
but not in any that required introspection.
You were swept up in a cycle
started generations before.
I’m typing this alone in my apartment,
left by the person about whom
we had our final fight,
but my son is on his way to visit me,
so maybe the cycle is broken.
/ / /
3 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 44 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentGratitude
Mike for Joni.
David for The Roots.
Jeff for Bruce.
The other Jeff for Dire Straits.
Roberto for Cachao.
Jen for Los Lobos.
Josh for Jewels And Binoculars.
Dave for Toad The Wet Sprocket.
Ady for Lilia Vera.
A different Jen for Elvis Costello.
Grandpa for Glen Gray.
Grandma for Nat Cole.
Cory for Billy Bragg.
Kazuhiro for TMN.
Steven for Leonard Cohen.
Paul for Hugh Masekela.
Christian for Billy Idol.
Todd for KISS.
Ed for Johnny Cash.
Tina for Hank Williams.
Peter for Youssou N’Dour.
Kevin for most of the rest.
/ / /
2 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 43 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentSuch Great Heights
I should have gone with you.
I know that now.
I knew it then, too,
but lacked the courage.
My son is coming to visit.
I think you’d like him.
Yours is old enough to vote now.
I know him only as
an infant in a car seat
at the airport departure gate.
It’s Friday afternoon.
I’m playing
“Such Great Heights”
by The Postal Service
on my radio show.
Remember when you
sent me that song?
It was many years after we’d met.
We got as far as planning to meet again
until you changed your mind
and retreated into silence.
Everything looks perfect from far away.
/ / /
1 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 42 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentInk
He pedaled his bike from the rented house
to the tattoo shop.
He was 35 years old.
He rode past the shop, went up a couple blocks.
Turned around.
Rode back, but out of sight of the big window.
Took a deep breath. Went in.
He showed the tattoo artist what he wanted.
A bicycle chain wheel with a peace sign
inside it: the Peace Cog.
“No problem,” said the artist.
Tommy, his name was.
Tommy went into the back.
The 35-year-old with his bare arms
waited on a vinyl chair,
back to the big window
and the traffic on the street outside.
After a few minutes Tommy returned,
the design drawn on a tissue-thin paper.
“Come on back,” Tommy said.
*
Later, at the union hall, a young coworker
spotted the ink on his forearm.
“Dude, did you get a tattoo?”
He felt … was it cool? Was he cool?
“Yeah,” he said.
/ / /
31 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 41 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentReferences
Another life:
We’re riding our
Jetson-y bubble bikes,
singing along to
“Detachable Penis”
and “Particle Man,”
quoting Python
and Grosse Pointe Blank.
Yes, I would like
fries with that.
/ / /
30 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 40 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentLong Distance
I came home from Japan a month early.
A grand surprise.
James picked me up at the airport.
We drove through town.
He pointed out the new post office,
the new Wegmans.
He took me to your house
before he took me home.
Your mom answered the door,
called you down from your room.
As soon as I saw your face,
I knew it was over.
/ / /
29 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 39 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentChance Encounter
I met him in the park
where you asked me
to marry you.
I was in a camping chair
behind my van,
reading.
He was passing by
on one of the park’s
walking paths.
The rear door of my van
(the van I moved into
after you met someone else)
was open,
and the bed and stove
caught his eye as he passed.
He stopped to talk,
asking about my travels,
what I had seen
and where I had slept
and how I kept alive;
everyone’s questions.
We exchanged numbers
for some reason,
and I stopped going
to that park,
the park where you asked me
to marry you,
before you met someone else.
/ / /
28 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 38 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentAncestry
To go down into the mine
again and again,
searching for one more seam,
one more rich vein.
To walk the dark tunnels
deeper and deeper,
until daylight fades behind
like a rumor.
To hear the trickling water
drip and drip,
making the way treacherous,
slick, unforgiving.
To chip away at the walls,
harder and harder,
until the dust
defies breathing.
To return to the surface,
levels and levels,
clutching a meager find,
holding it up to the light.
/ / /
27 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 37 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentMr. W
We all piled out of the plane at Narita,
taking our first steps into the mystery.
A few spoke some Japanese;
most, like me, not a word.
Then suddenly he was there,
quick and powerful and suave,
a smile permanently lurking
just behind his eyes.
He showed us how to use a payphone
so we could tell our parents we’d lived.
“Last call for a month,” he reminded us.
Then it was buses, if memory serves.
Taneen would remember.
Anyway, it was a long trip north
to a hotel in Sendai, where
the next morning a series
of curious families would try
to identify us from the one photo
they’d each been sent.
Halting conversations,
mispronounced names,
then helping us into cars
or onto trains with our suitcases
and our wide-eyed stares.
Mr. W watched over it all,
nodding at the right places,
stepping in to translate,
making sure each of us felt cared for.
Later he’d party with us
and dance and sing songs
and watch us eat soba
till a couple of us puked.
We were all thousands of miles
from our fathers, but he made it feel
like no distance at all.
/ / /
26 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
For Wakabayashi-san, who passed away recently and who was the guardian and guide to so many Rotary exchange students in northern Japan. Arigatou gozaimashita.
This is poem 36 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
One Comment