photo-shopped engravings

 

photo-shopped engravings

 

 

looping in love struck circles

odd heart shapes

knowing glances with girls i knew before

 

dancing in the head of my 1971 flares

your eyes glistening under your red dyed locks

you saying you needed to walk up town to pick up pictures

in the morning,

asking if anyone wanted to join you,

knowing i was the only one available

 

what shape now?

as i laughed and gave in to the prospect---

that walk became a photo of us

stages of dye

becoming a non-virgin of circumstance

 

holding you in unreal dreams

we sank into each other like blissful quicksand

 

letting go of the branches that could have kept us afloat

the sanctuary of each other's arms

became college dreams

then shattered degrees

of animosity

 

i could always claim

"i knew you when" like Billy Joe Royal crooned

years before we knew that he was talking about us

 

but i didn't know you now,

the dye had faded, the black streak down the middle

of your truths

shown too encrypted

like the you that got buried in the you

you became...

 

and this many years later,

the memories flare like the old jeans

 

and those photos that were our excuse then

never even made it to an album of afterthought---

 

goodbye to you then,

and now---

 

blurred pictures don't smile back

the way they were once imagined

to.

 

 

erin-cilberto

1/13/17

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

1971 was the year for me. Flares bought from Melody Maker in aubergine a zip a 22in flare.
First days at college. Growing my hair. liking progressive rock even if I didn't understand it. The early love you speak of. Oh I can apply so much of this layered write to myself. Thanks for allowing pathways in for such as me. It is tremendous. you allow us to touch the past Jacob and there is no finer gift.
Trouble is I don't have any photo's, my ex burned them all when we parted company.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

as Mary Hopkin sang..."those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end"
i think she was right...
thank you for sharing your story with this poem..Ken.

j.