Late fifties, early sixties,
Maybe somewhere in between,
I died.
Can’t explain how it happened,
I don’t think it was a big deal,
It certainly didn’t feel like it.
Besides, if it was a tragedy, shouldn’t I remember it?
It doesn’t matter anyhow,
It’s all over. The point is that I lived,
And now I can’t remember enough to sustain myself on memories.
I’m left with that itch you can’t scratch until you put your finger on that word,
That face you forgot,
The name of that restaurant,
Figure out what it is you’re hungry for,
Bring that specific thought to the front of your mind and picture it,
Feel it,
Recall what you need to…
Instead I’m left with half-thoughts,
Words and figures I can’t finish
Because it was long ago,
Looking with a different set of eyes.
Here I am now,
Out of place,
Uncomfortable in my own skin,
People noticing that I’m not quite right,
I don’t quite fit into the landscape,
And there’s nowhere for me to be.
Because it’s not a where,
It’s a when,
And you can’t take a plane to a when.
You can’t drive your car or bike or even take the bus
To 1958,
Because wherever you go,
It’s still going to be a place in Now.
Everything Now is a bitter reminder that I’m a foreigner,
An intruder on a new place that deserves new souls that love new things.
Even the good things are a slap in the face,
A kick to the shin,
A bright light in my old eyes,
That bring my attention to the calendar,
The clock,
The dress on the streets,
The technology in the hands of every man, woman, and child with two thumbs and a pocket to stow it away.
I want late nights listening to those smooth notes pouring off the stage like mist on a cool morning,
Everyone on the dancefloor losing themselves in it,
Instead of losing themselves in brightly lit screens in their laps,
Fingers shaking with anticipation for the next tap and scroll.
Where’s the addiction to long drives and the yearning for a simple joy?
It’s disappeared into an addiction to little black boxes and all the noises they make and information they stole from books and brains and the tongues of real, live people that died with less attendees to their funerals than attendees to the opening of the new Apple store.
No one listens to the old folks,
Too busy resenting the things they left behind for us,
Even though they couldn’t control it either.
Good things that last take more effort to destroy
Than the flimsy new things take to create,
But we destroy them anyway,
Instead of honoring the way they earned their place in our world.
Artists with the ability to remember and record are distracted by politics and ugly things,
And forget their responsibility.
Fifty years from now,
We won’t have anything beautiful to offer our children and their’s.
Is it too late for me?
Am I destined for misery?
I’m an old thing, too, does that mean I’m fated for a dusty closet or decaying garbage bin?
I couldn’t have been made alone.
I couldn’t have been left on my own in this new place,
There has to be someone else,
Maybe even more than one someone,
Because anything less is too cruel.
And if there is,
Where do we go?
Can we make a new place out of Then?
Or is it too late?
Is it impossible…
Impossible to make a where out of a when?