I stayed single
On a second floor
Studio apartment
Until I was fifty
Except for the occasional
One night stand
It was just me
And the cockroaches
It was easier to co-exist
Than to wage war
I wasn’t home
All that much anyway
Spending my evenings
At the gym
Or writing at Starbucks
I figured I’d die there
One day
The place would
Start to smell
And the EMT’s
Would drag my carcass
Down the stairs
Like they did
With a couple
Of other guys
Who stayed there forever
But it just so happened
That I met a lady
With a three bedroom house
In a gated community
And now I’m mowing
The lawn and watering
The trees in the backyard
And to boot
We had a baby
And I hardly ever
Get a chance to go
To the gym
Or to Starbucks
I’ll tell you
In a way
I miss the cockroaches
And somehow I feel
I was cheated
Out of my destiny
Comments
1 - 29 of 29
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So this is what would have happened if Bukowski had gotten married and settled down. I think this poem is more than just social commentary-- I see this as an individual struggle. People create routines and are loathe to give them up, even if the situation improves.
It also reminds me of something the born-agains like to spout-- that the worst thing about hell is that people embrace the suffering.
Yet, I wonder, if we didn't have our demons, who would we be?
Lauren
language: 5, rhythm: 5, subject: 5, tone: 5, form: 5.
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hey lauren
yeah i guess if you get used to hell you'd miss it.
i think Buk had his fifties to do the research for his novel Women, and enjoy his minor celebrity before settling down and buying his house in San Pedro. but hey i'm no buk and i got the best deal I'm going to get.
plus if i could wave a magic wand and go back to the studio i'd probably say, oh my god what did i do. which goes to show poety is an equal mixture of bullshit and truth which equates to a half truth.
dave -
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Heh. True dat.
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Makes me think
This wonderful work reminds me so much of my father-in-law. An academic who upon retirement had dreams of sitting in that elusive coffee shop only to find that retirement has more than its share of daily chores that don't involve sitting in a cafe surrounded by quiet, beautiful people. We never are quite content with what we have, are we? Looking back at what we now perceive as the "salad days" it can be difficult to remember the troubles, yearnings, and trials from that time period.
Your cockroaches are reminiscent of my "salad" grad school days where I was between husbands, living with my brother and a roommate in a dilapidated country house with a single propane heater. We had no tv reception, drank a lot, fought continuously, and had a problem with scorpions in the house. Ah to be back there again!
Fantastic writing, Dave. I hope you get a chance to go out for that coffee soon.
Heidi
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hey ruby
i feel sorry for your father-in-law and maybe for all those who lost their salad days.
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Haha, that's funny. I like how you added that you found a woman and had a baby. Cool sentiments
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thanks xX
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I always like how you played with perspective. Haha. I like how you find fault in the status quo, but really, it just empty whining. The hell season does bring in nostalgia and yes, you kinda miss the roaches, but man, that's just hindsight. Current situations is better.
But yes, there is sentiment there. I think we all miss the 'hard life' once in a while. But as you pointed out in some of your comments, the grass is greener now.
Dave, you really have a way of putting a twist into the daily life.
-iphios -
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hey iphios
thanks for commenting, yeah hindsight is 20-20.
dave
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Sweeet!
There's a good story in there. I like the enjambment, especially in the final verse. You might have overdone it in places though. But overall, cool!
language: 2, rhythm: 3, subject: 5, tone: 4, form: 3.
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thanks Zacha,
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Dave, I like this a lot. It was really neat for me. On the surface it seems to be stating the personal story and current condition in a very matter-of-fact way but as it is doing that, a real personal connections seeps from the lines. The emotion wasn't "in your face" but it was strong in a subtle way, and for it did not dwell too much in regret nor did it fill up with gratitude. It had that feel of "I like this life I landed in, but sometimes I miss the old one." Very similar to the concept of being with a woman you know is the one for you, but occasionally wondering what you're old flame is doing. It isn't so much as desire to cheat or be unfaithful, but more a desire to reconnect with the past. In any case, I really enjoyed this. I think the short lines helped build a nice, consistent beat to it, too. Hopefully I am not way off in my thinking, and I thank you for another very enjoyable read with a perfect ending.
language: 4, rhythm: 4, subject: 5, tone: 4, form: 4.
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hey mark
thanks for commenting, i take your saying subtle as a compliment one of my complaints with movies is they're too in your face as you put it.
dave
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I'm still in my "growing my whiskers" period, and I'd give it up in a heartbeat to find someone to love.
But like you, I know if I did, I'd look back on this time in my life as "the good old days" (yeah, right).
This was a very thoughtful, bittersweet poem that got right to the heart of things. We have our youthful independence, we find someone, we get a house and become "respectable." Then we wish for our wild youth days back again. This is so true! Excellent job on this poem. I am starting to like free verse.
language: 5, subject: 5.
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hey LJ
guess when always think the grass is greener even when its browner. but thats just human nature. these are the good old days, like the song says. thanks for commenting.
dave
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Bitter-sweet, like all
nostalgia, sharp as the scent of that grass, cuts to the heart... How we reconstruct our choices with the benefit of hindsight! You ol' romantic, you... Best RA -
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hey river
yeah bitter/sweet is the flavor of life, notice how its not sweet/bitter
dave
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an intriguing write here Dave.
Regret's a biggie...in whatever shape or form it comes in, we all regret something.
This had a smooth rhythm and still for the most part felt like a poem
The ending I think stood out the most...it's a lot to say it like that --- I was cheated out of my destiny...Strong.
Well done
Cindy
language: 5, rhythm: 5, subject: 5, tone: 5, form: 5.
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hey cinfully delicious
yeah i was cheated out of my destiny but thats ok i have a new one. thanks for commenting
dave
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the wonderful taste of regret
again, another dave classic! hey, dave...it's been a long time...but, you are always one of the few poets here that i make a point in checking out and i'm glad i did.
i see here the wonderful taste of regret...did i say wonderful? yeah, i did...because you see, i think that no matter how much we miss our solitude, we would still miss the mundane things in life that involve people we love...
so, what do we do with our regrets? we savor them for a bit and then move on...we revisit them again and then move on...
i like the way you constructed this poem, as it got me to thinking of a lot of things...
kudos, dave!
language: 4, rhythm: 4, subject: 4, tone: 4, form: 4.
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salamat leigh
glad your back around share po. you understood the poem perfectly despite my "regrets" i wouldn't go back to the days without my mestiza for anything.
dave
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This is great. I enjoy the turn in the end quite a bit, letting the reader be aware of the type of character you've constructed (or mimicked--yourself?): one who harkens back to the time of simplistic days, full of solitude. He seems to prefer these over the more calculated approach to life. It's amazing how someone can be discontent in acquiring a thing most desire: structure. A nice celebration of the loss of individual destiny.
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hey wh
thanks for the comments which actually seemed to match the irony of the poem.
dave
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Odd and ironic to the max, dave, how sometimes we miss those rough times with the bugs in small rooms, all kinds of sorrows going on around us, even in us. Your poem brings all that back for me - something like "those were the good old days, but please don't bring them back...on the otherhand..."
You nailed down that ambiguous feeling about hellish times in which we grew our whiskers and learned how to survive. Now we're mowing lawns like civilized people, and it often feels like a crock, like we've been bought, but it does feel good at times.
Love this one, dave, the clarity of pulling contradictory feelings apart and looking...
One of your best; it gets to my thoughts, too.
Lad -
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hey lad
in a hypothetical situation where someone was asking me to explain what this poem was about I'd probably get all long winded and after forty five minutes whoever was doing the asking would say, huh? and i'd say here let Lad explain it to and thirty seconds later they'd be nodding yes now i get it. thanks for saving me all that breath.
dave
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Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee.
Hey, Professor. Your mentor would have been proud of you for this one. It's your usual, direct, no-nonsense self but the streak of irony that laces this one as indefinable and impossible to nail down as it is unmistakeable and it STINGS. The sense of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' will haunt all thinking men at least a little. It flows like silk however, you even came close to a little internal rhyming, unbeknownst to yourself I'm quite sure. I wonder also did you intend a metaphor for the war of the sexes with your references to the war with the cockroaches. That very strong image is the one that lingers when you deliver your final punchline. This one numbers among your best for me. >W< -
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thanks john
i wasnt totally sure about this one so i'm glad you liked it. can only take credit for the roaches metaphor in retrospect like the internal rhymes i wasn't aware of.
dave
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hey marcus
thanks for being the first to comment. i was going after irony. yes i have regrets but of course if i'd stayed i'd also have regrets i guess the grass is always greener. the caps is a good critique the stupid computer automatically caps a new sentence too dumb to know i'm writing poetry and i was too lazy to uncap each sentence.
dave -
Hey Dave
I liked the poem here alot. Sounds like the person in the poem is having a pretty decent case if not a serious one, of "the regrets". It is nice sometimes to live in solitude. You can learn alot about yourself. become a stronger person. Or you can become a much weaker person. But hopefully either way you will grow somehow. The only thing I could pick at would be the Caps at the beginning of every sentence. I tried to find a meaning behind it but couldn't. It isn't for flow purposes. It doesn't spell anything, I couldn't find any special purpose behind it, therefore finding it distracting and interrupting of the rhythm. That's the only thing I can complain about and that's just an alteration of letters from one form to the next. Nothing REAL to complain about. Congrats on another job well done. A good poem that conjured thoughts of my past. Always a fun, exciting, but scary place sometimes. Thanks for the experience.
TTYL
MM
language: 3, rhythm: 2, subject: 3, tone: 3, form: 4.
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