Little Boy Blue~

~written in 1984~

Someday

I would like

To stop picking pieces of you

Out of my back pockets

Every time

I reach for a dime;

You were so fond of writing

Notes

In class

Slipping them down the back of my shirt

Some boys were happy with snapping bra straps

But not you

You wrote a thousand fairy tales

Between Algebra

And History

We were lucky to be at the back

Of the class

Though we were at the head of maturation

Fighters

Justice

branded by the lack of experiencing it

We made our own justice

Sister Mary wished us gone

I think that’s why

They kept us skipping grades

 

And here comes the shift

 

Little boy blue

Man on the beat

Officer down

Town riddled with bullets

In your holster they found a short story

I patched my Siouxsie and the Banshees t shirt

With your words

And wore your poetry over my heart

For decades

 

Someday

I would like to stop by your grave

And plant the stories

In the earth

With flowers

But all I do is kneel

And find more pieces of you

In my back pockets

 

 

 

copyright:(originally written June 1984)2011 vssmd/amusemusepress

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Author's Note

~going through old notebooks with many scribbles~memories return in waves~

Reviews

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

This is heartbreaking. What a wonderful kind of guy .. i remember the bra snapping.. detested it .. but i would have loved a note , poem slipped down the back of my shirt.
This is a memory that is bittersweet- to go and plant the stories with the flowers... what a beautiful thought. Yes, this was felt.

Chloe

[Jibey]

A pretty and affecting poem... the wistful recollection of schooldays and the hard brutality of life's tragedies comes across all the more powerfully because of the simple words and restrained emotion...

[SpokenWord]

Those little pieces of paper with a zillion words on them were so plentiful that they were all over and now they are a treasure to find, a nice reminder of who he was to himself and to her the one who misses him. Haunting yes but at the same time it is beautiful to have that kind of a piece of a person to hold onto, to read, to remember and to dream.

At first I was thinking this poem was heading towards a happy ending but then the middle part started the twist and I was shocked that little boy blue died it was as unexpected to me as it was to her I imagine.

this was one of your older poems? It was truly good and a well told story. Loved it.

[David W Moore III]

Haunting. Your future voice is evident here in whispers. '84, one of my friends died in a car accident (alcohol, 120 mph and a tree don't mix so well) Also the year I wrote Shadows, the first thing I wrote that I thought was good enough to keep, and the piece that made me decide I would be published one day. A bad year, a good year, but always a good read!

[Thea Fuentebella]

there is beauty behind that sadness and you've captured it well. i can feel a whole lot of emotional hurricane because of this. Beautiful..is all there is

[Bard Constantine]

The most unique of lights are often snuffed out the quickest. This is such a tender rendering of emotion and memory... the bittersweet taste dissolves in the mind...

[Tommy]

Blue birds don't always sing happy tunes, and this is a sad sad song. A story of love, met with the tragic reality of life. Selene this is a tender write. Your memories come in like a tidal-wave filling my heart with emotion.

Wow this was felt!
RLG,
Tommy

[MuSe Ampoule]

wow...that really hit me hard! How emotional. You drew me in as you always do, then hit me hard...I'm still reeling. Marvelous...striking...and so sad.

[Linear]

God thats so Sad, so touching a poem as never been written, tears jerked from these my frozen eyes

[Robin]

how memories surge through the mind and flow through the heart ~ this memory written in the bluest of inks , your ink is priceless ~