The Music in my Life

The Music in my life

 

 

Running on Empty

In a few months

I will turn forty

and to me somehow it is

like I’m touching a monster

and

the roaring 30s

and all of my passion

for saving the world

and fighting the establishment

and my ideas of changing things

have faded a little

dulled a little

and now sleep

more

each day

 

my bitterness

replaced

by simple resignation

my anxiety

replaced

with a simple question

What can one man do?

to change the way things are

the way things were

the way things will be

 

 

Time in a bottle

When I was little

and tottering

around on two

unsteady feet

and my nickname was

‘Sneaky Pete’

I would get into messy trouble

while the music of my

mother and father

played in the background

those songs of protest

those songs of war

of betterment

and my mother

still spoke

of Bobby Kennedy

of the race riots

that burned Kansas City

and of the Italians that stood on the steps of the school

daring that first n****r to get off that bus

 

Tell me,

do you remember your parents young?

Full of fire. Full of dreams and hopes

without the lines and the loss

and climbing over mountains

and burning draft cards

and fighting the man

do you remember your parents?

who made their own candles and yoghurt

who sat in the lotus position

for hours

and hours

while you drove your Matchbox cars

across their legs

do you remember you parents?

young and beautiful

and listening to the Drifters sing about being

 

 

Under the Boardwalk

I try to tell younger adults

who still have both their parents

and their grandparents

to go see them

to tolerate their moods

to ask them of their memories

before the darkness sets upon

their lives

and all you have are scant memories

walking to a dimestore

your grandmother buying you

a small green plastic police car

that you treasure

for the rest of your life

because its all you have

to remember her kindness

and quiet ways

she used to buy me small

plastic animals

and I would play with them

my grandmother

taught me to nap

in the afternoons

 

all you teenage poets

full of anger

full of romantic pain

full of words

go see your grandparents

listen to their words

listen to their memories

of a golden time

done gone by

like a long Indian summer

and a brilliant Autumn at the end

 

 

California Dreamin’

I watch the sun set on water

its golds, crimsons, oranges

and I watch the wraiths of fire

dance upon the water

 

I’ve got my own life now

filled with spoiked dreams, hopes

and a wrecked marriage

 

but I’ve got two girls

to spend my days with

so I think for now

I’ll take their wee hands

and walk along the beach

with the sand between our toes

cold water splashing at my feet

my ears filled with the laughter of my girls

and the calling of the seabirds

my eyes with the blaze of the day’s finishing light

my mind filled with memories

of my own

--william paris