Rust

when i was a boy

we’d climb

the suspension bridges

 

hoist ourselves up

to the cables

and grab on

 

gloves always helped

 

we'd grasp at the

cold metal

look down

at the roadbed

the icy water

300 feet below

and never think

about falling

or maybe

it would be

the boom

of a construction crane

suspended above

the top of a

sixty story skyscraper

hawks screaming past

our ears

 

but now

i only watch

as the bacon grease

congeals

and wonder

about its lustrous sheen

as it forms a plug

that you can swallow

if you like

and think

how did I get to be

so old?

 

 

Reviews

[roarke]

all bacon aside... you've got the blueprint for the fountain of youth before you. Your piece deftly brought the essence of youth to life in a few strokes, holographic emotion. In age, we redefine adventure so it doesn't include death defying trapeze work...
Excellent stuff.

[. serah .]

-- hahahaha... unbelievable... but i completely disagree with you, Maestro D. ... -- your little boy heart wrote this poem... it has magical earnestness and innocence... and even that wonderful element of curiosity in the final question... and the way it is rendered... -- as for me, i have still not found one logical reason which sells the idea of growing old to me... yes, i don't climb as many trees as i did when i was a little girl... but in my mind... i've been to Everest... -- i have a fairy (fellow WC member Renée J. Martin) and i play with her in her garden of verse... -- one day, i got brainwashed by someone and i wrote to her and said that i had decided to grow up... and she replied instantly and said, "please don't. if you grow up, who will i play with?"... so now i don't get brainwashed either... :p

-- and i think your grandson is a lucky dude... for he has you to help him discover quintessential boyness... (my word :p) -- if i remember correctly, the relevant idiom is 'learning the ropes'... and you remember the 'rope trick' (hoist ourselves up the cables) quite vividly... :p

-- thank you for re-publishing this gem written by your pranksterish (my word) 'self'... :)

[SkinlessFrank]

ummm....I'm afraid that your own pranksterish self knows me too well now to fall for such a trick...and i would have to admit that you are likely right...just as polka dots colour the heart of a poet whom i have met on this site, i still cannot resist the urge to lie on my back in a field of grass and stare up at the clouds, and then reach over, pick a blade of grass, split it down the middle and place it between my thumbs to form a "grass whistle"....i can't wait for the day when I can show little Shaya that trick

[. serah .]

-- wow... am giggling about the polka-dotted reference... :p -- little Shaya will love the "grass whistle" ... it'll be one of his most precious discoveries... :) p.s. one prankster can always recognise another... lol... it's a gift granted by the Gods to the believers of pranksterism... :p

[Carolann Dowsett]

Good Poem, Reflective

[.]

all that saturated fat...
wonder indeed

[Erik A. Harris]

I like this poem. As a boy so adventurous, yet with age you lose it to bacon grease. PROFOUND!

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

Coming face to face with our mortality come with the territory of getting older... I know when I was younger I could ride planes or roller coasters without fear, now I hesitate to do either.

[WhiteWillow]

I think the ingestion of bacon grease is as daring as tightrope walking between buildings. Don't let anyone ever tell you you lost your edge.

[Steven]

haha, good stuff Frank. I'm starting to wake up with sore back.

Ha, wonderous write, first of all, you tell the reader a very exciting thing, the adrenaline children have, when they try to do their boundaries, and then back on focused on your here and now, and again the perfect details, on food.
That's astonishing, and gave me as a reader time-jumps. Thanks.

E.L.

[Harry Alston]

The binary opposite of youth and adulthood is expertly done. Fantastic.