Faded and False

I probably should have gone to bed a while ago, but still I write on. I don't think any of this is any good, but it sure feels cathartic. A poem in three parts, on the three great aspirations of my life, and two great failures.

I.

In the year of 1998, the six concrete panels

that comprised our driveway and my court

were daily drummed on by a cheap rubber sphere.

God, having favor for this faithful practice,

sent rain, knowing that puddles would result,

and puddles made each bounce erratic,

honing my mind and hopes of one day

being the best.

I never was, not even of my school,

small as it was, but oh, how I dreamed.

Each pass the Pistol made passed through me,

infused my days with thoughts of jumpers off the glass,

long hours of drills making for game-ready skills,

but no practice could rid me of timidity,

save me from being a sheep on the court,

taking a beating in the post and praying

Coach would soon have mercy and call for time.

It lingered, that dream, of playing before my peers,

even that last summer before my last year,

each summer’s dawn saw me make the drive

to an gym empty of others and full of work;

but six hours was never enough,

I was never meant to run the court with flair,

though God knows he gave me the hope,

and so I sat and swore as each pass

went by me.

II.

I suppose it made sense, as I was perched at the edge

of those precipitous years when aching shins added

inches to my height, and my spindly frame grew

thinner and stretched, that I picked up the trombone.

Hardly an instrument of elegance and class,

Go on mate, give us a gliss

is the fate of all of us who chose brass

at such a young age – all my peers plucked

and strummed on cheap wooden fenders

while I emptied spit from a valve on my slide

before trying again Dvorak’s great ninth.

I worked hard, making up for lost time,

the others first steps were far in their wakes,

and all my mistakes seemed made for rehearsal,

and Rodzinsky reborn with his furious eyebrows

cursed the day he allowed for four trombones.

It never quite left, my dreams of the stage,

I still go and I sit, sit as I listen

to those who had talent to mix with their dreams,

as Mr. Jay Friedman nightly performs

the golden fruits of his labors,

the apples of my discord.

III.

read em and weep

the pantheon of greats

from homer to auden

and know in your sould

far deeper than heart

that nothing you say

could ever be art

of one tenth of their worst

or if it strikes you

go one step down

and spend your time reading

those without renown

who still have great merit

for who thinks of robinson

aside from cheevy and corey

and twenty years will see the end

of cairns and collins

and though my best may muster

and be on display

never will these words

find life of their own

oh yes they may linger

through pity or grace

but you cannot fool me

for i have read all the masters

and most of the squires

and feel in my soul

i should not aspire

to play in their realm

each rotten rhythm and rhyme

a shot i cant sink

each mutilated image

a broken partial

each insipid verse

the setting of a winter sun