PAIN WRITES A POEM

PAIN WRITES A POEM

In 1969 there was a bumper sticker going around that said,

 “Never trust anyone over 30”.

I understood it perfectly,

I was twenty.

I didn’t think that I’d ever have to worry about becoming  one of 

them.

 Not the way I was living my life those days..

Lost.

High school over,

College disappointing, 

Dreams of adventuring the country 

on the back of a motorcycle with my best buddy

up in smoke,

(literally)

and drowned in downers. 

He found heroin and a shy quiet southern girl

with dark eyes and hair and sad secrets kept to herself.

I found more smoke and dope

and beautiful young women with whom I slipped lustfully

into love with 

in the wee hours of darkened bars.

Morning sunlight washed away the desperate lonely night

as I crept away lonely time and time again.

I had lost my heart

but didn’t know it. 

That love center went

out of business with the last betrayal. 

Time, 

like Ol’ Man River

kept rollin, rolling along.

Mourning my life and abandoned dreams 

of what might have been, 

I awoke one morning 

and discovered I was thirty.

And the next morning I was thirty-five.

Rebelling against authority

ever since my original trust in life 

was beaten out of me by events and people 

beyond my control,

I discovered I no longer trusted

my self. 

This morning

after so many years 

of searching for my lost joy

in all the wrong places outside myself,

I find it hard to keep going.

At this age of 69 I think

perhaps I have outlived my life

by more than twice the age of trust.

Everything important seems to be behind me:

the marriage,

the children,

the career, 

the music and art, 

the book still not written..

The coffee still tastes wonderful as always

but it no longer lifts my spirit or enthuses me.

No.

instead I sit writing these words,

then reading the words others have written,

waiting for my back and neck and shoulders and knees to loosen

so I can move less painfully,

so I can get just a glimpse of the powerful young body

I relied on so well

before the wrecking ball of time

knocked me off my feet 

and over the line between thirty-five and sixty-nine. 

I had cataract surgery last year.

I finally got those hearings aids.

My ears are artificially young again.

Maybe there is something can be done 

for the big arthritic toe that groans,

along with my sciatica  

as I take my daily walk 

careful of that knee.

This body has become a tattered old suit

that will rot back into soil

feeding worms and trees.

Some days,

the end is something 

I even look forward to.