poem with all the time left in the world

they closed the Macy's at the mall; was it so long ago that mother lost her keys there and the head

manager found them and put them on a shelf in the back where other mothers lost their keys? and again

she came running from behind the glass counter jingling, where the Loreal fovea sits and smells all day.

Where the old folks who were once fourteen said something to the boy who found them attractive enough

to ask them out on a note scribble four-line. No one but our parents owned cars then but there were yards

with extravagant trees where moonlight and Jesus would swoop down with his flaming sword and tap shoulders

with giant asterisks and quartets swooned with routines that fueled our desires and then repeated till we moaned

and said "they was bad" and your father drove you home with you still pretending to do your feet in the back wheel wells until you hit imaginary walls. but somehow the sparrows kept performing and you keep singing under your breath and acting like the earth was fog and gold and all sacrament was at the alter for continuous daytime.. I'm assuming you know what a closed store looks like

when the doors close for good and the clerks are laid off and the managers, with their shelves of lost keys, are let

go to seek work in other stores? How they sit in the lunch room for the final time and all the strings and ribbons of

Easter are just talking balls wandering the empty glass windows; where the manikins un-rope their plastic cervix's and pretend that they've  made love. 

Reviews

[Robert Trakofler]

The mall in the town I grew up in got eaten by a walmart (literally they tore it down and built a walmart) then the walmart ate all the stores downtown (my mother had a gift & card store downtown sold it and still open but hanging on by a thread) and now If you want to buy anything in Greensburg Pennsylvania you have to go to a walmart or order it on amazon:? I get it this is a free market society and all that but how does one compete against the walmarts and amazons of this world? kinda like this is a free will society but how does one compete against the alternate society of the internet. when "liking" something has become the alternative to carrying someones groceries to the car or hugging your favorite sales clerk on there birthday... nope... ping! auto generated happy birthday message pinned on her wall how warm and special:)

[h d e rushin]

And no need pretending that it doesn't hurt when a store you loved closes down. Walmart is a metaphor for hopelessly unattainable. And when to go there you see the same people every time. Which means that it's being used as the corner store use to be used. Trouble is, you have to drive there which is an entirely different loveless behavior. Thanks Bad for remembering with me....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

I can proudly say I have never been inside a Walmart until sometime this week cause I can’t get my test strips from anywhere else I will wear a disguise and apologize to the clerk for supporting there employer:/

[roarke]

You express strong emotion and nostalgia in this piece about all the life and community surrounding and inside bygone department stores. Your words and impressions and personality are pitch on here.

[barleygirl]

I've read you along the way, but somehow I don't remember your writing being SO delightfully caustic! Either my memory is bad (very possible) or your writing has been pumping up a few notches. This is delicious satire. I was satisfied making fun of people who thrive on shopping & malls & s**t. But then you go that extra mile & bump this spoof into the REAL losers when stores are boarded up. Wow! That's a gritty comparison done with an effective blase droning-on style, like everything is hunky-dory & we're all idiots for not being able to see what really goes on. The last two things I just read from you are very hot, as far as satire. Your writing could be smoothed a little, but your way of thinking & expressing is red hot! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[h d e rushin]

thanks Margie...I tell everyone I know that i'm working on a play. The same play I was working on in 2018..lol/ But things like plays and poems evolve but not always to resolution. It's like what my poetry teacher use to tell me all the time. "When you run out of subject matter , always write a love poem". He meant not the love poems that elicit love by moral or ideal means, but poems of soulless rebellion against everything else you've forgotten. I mean, stores close all the times but people worked there, and people shopped there, which makes the closing more lovesick than lovesome. Plays make you humble is what i'm trying to say....thank you my friend...dana

[redzone]

Dana, Dana, Dana such a thrilling ride though time you pen... so many of the things we did and saw when young, no longer exist (except in memories)…. grew up in an eastern city where row homes ruled and back yards too small for trees (a row of rose bushes maybe) so for us it was the alley ways where stolen kisses were taken/exchanged and hey-zus was no where in sight.... and using the single family car was a right of passage, especially when used to cruise main street and make out on skyline drive....

if life has shown us anything, it's that we do not have "all the time in the world", just memories of what was, including us and our attitudes/beliefs, etc.... all of the things you mention by way of real and metaphor are gone in that ago form and new things have replaced them.... since the high tide of the late 60's early 70's, things have been stolen away with the illusion of returning to the 50's and before (the good old days) but I think the biggest thing that has changed is our "hope for the future".... "HOPE" is a powerful force and it is this they current society and social norms are trying to steal... each person for themselves, long live the wild wild west, guns drawn and reactionary fascism ablaze.... perhaps the loss of Macy's is a symbol for this loss of hope.... give me some of that "they was bad" under those trees again... or maybe also said like Martha and the Vandellas, "dancing in the streets, do a big boss line"....

your poetry always moves me Dana....

[h d e rushin]

I thought about the "hope" you speak about in your analysis Red. And it is a powerful force especially when place beside the images of things lost or beliefs un-retrieved/ thank you my friend for those insightful remarks and happy holidays to you...dana

[Ken Simm.]

The high st here in Britain has more or less become extinct. Shops are a rare breed and what we call corner shops and what you would call Mom & Pop have gone altogether under the whaling fleets of the internet. And they have taken so much with them. So much that was good, wholesome and frankly cosy. So I empathise with the top layer of this multi layered writing right away. What gets me about the rest is the sheer complexity and development of a story poem that is not just about nostalgia but about living in times and the details that fly around you.

[h d e rushin]

so it happened there too Ken? The great swallowing up of of accountability. The store where the shop owner would help you carry your items to your wagon on the curb. Lost. All of it, along with the sense of subscription we gave to kindness and assumed burden. Now it's everyman and woman for themselves....thanks my friend for your kind words....dana

[Coyote Poetry]

I live in the Detroit. So sad to the old store and places we enjoy go away. My grandchildren want "Toys are us" back so bad. They offer to pay me to take them to Canada for the toy. I loved Macy. Best place to buy a quality shoes. Hell my friend. Thank you for sharing your wonderful words and thoughts.
Coyote

[h d e rushin]

My mother use to take my and my sister (on the crosstown bus of course) to the old Hudson's store where sits the new Ford Field in downtown Detroit. It was always a wonderful experience and the best place to buy just about anything. I miss the old store, the bus rides, the feelings, the memories...thanks my friend for those kind comments...dana

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome dear Dana.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

lately so many stores are closing...the Macy's here also....and a great meat market little store Arnolds....
it just shows us that time has moved on from our parents' childhoods...to ours being also a thing of the past.
changes are not necessarily good...the mom and pop stores pretty much gone because of corporate take overs...chains eating chains....those stores and restaurants where the proprietors all knew us by name...and it was like home...
home is cold now....my parents are cold now...life doesn't seem too friendly...
this poem reminds me...and those mannequins in the window...making love...with dollar signs pinned to them.
j.

[h d e rushin]

I get it Jacob. The big comes to town with lower prices and greater inventory, parking and lighting. and the little guy with warm smiles, personal relations and first names gets swallowed up. That's not how it's suppose to be but here we are...thanks for those kind remarks my friend...dana

[emmajoy]

'.. and again she came running from behind the glass counter jingling, where the Loreal fovea sits and smells all day.. [

Oh my, that is wonderful though so sad.. and similar happening over in the UK... tho nobody could 'say' it the way you can and do, dana!

This is such a visually relevant piece of writing wrapped in how things are going these days. Could see each in a silent movie... a slip and gentle slide of life. Think, no, am sure, the excerpts about the keys are what really get/got to me, it's the emotional happenings, the setting by for forgetful or sadly careless people who maybe suffered trauma, tears, hardship by their losses.. . but weren't completely forgotten.

You so often move me to tears. You've done it again! .

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dearest emmajoy for those kind remarks my friend. I'm still reading all the lovely "Christmas Collaboration poems" for the new year. They were more wonderful than ever,, thanks to you my love....dana

[emmajoy]

Your words inevitably show me a living thought, dana: such a precious gift.