Thursday, July 21, 2016

poem of the day 07.21.16

almost combray

i was the consummate indoor kid
i could kill hours watching tv on the couch
contemplating the endless reaches of my unknown self
asking the eternal, why me? why me?
as i drew bad comics or flipped through baseball cards
with no regards to ever play the game
an existentialist latch key success story
left to his own thoughts and devices from age eleven on
drowning in cans of discount soda
and generic boxed macaroni and cheese
1950s and 60s sitcoms like a banquet too
an obese masturbation machine with the old man’s playboys
and any long, tan set of talk show host’s legs
when the neighborhood kids came calling
with their wiffle bats and nerf footballs
with their basketballs or huffy bikes
i tore my fat ass upstairs and hid in the dark of my room
as if the gestapo were coming for me and my hold on time
there i waited in the rich blue curtain shade
of mid-afternoon dark, for them to go away
or out into the street to play those games
to talk that talk that straddled the line of innocence and lust
cultivating those tranquil memories
a whole carnival of useless moments
that wouldn’t matter to any of them within an hour
wherein i had that solace of time alone
as i crept around my house, daring myself to make a sound
to prove that i was real inside this fortress of solitude
almost combray if you will
but with glossy pictures of alyssa milano
and lisa bonet on my walls to contemplate like madeleines
instead of laying prostrate in a cork-lined room
sniffing at hawthorns and staring at steeples
or whatever it was that proust always looked at
when the memories and melting of time
swelled like bursting rivers in his head
or when he just wanted the good people of the world
to leave him the hell alone
if only for a little while.

                                               



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