Some Songs for People at Drive-Up Windows

One About Heartbreak and Consternation

We weren't really lovers, ever, were we?
I'm not sure what you could say we were,
Two odd people who liked each other,
And then you decided we shouldn't,
I guess. You went away, and that was
Fine. I was slowly learning to live with
Your loss, but you're back now, silent,
Acting as if we never were anything,
Surely not lovers. I don't find that
Fine. I can't understand why
You're here.


One About a Beach

There isn't much to Airlie Beach in terms of culture.
It's a tourist town. Nobody there's from there.
The streets are lined with bars and restaurants,
Tour guides and souvenir shops. There's no place
You could buy a book. The sidewalks teem with
Dowdy women, flown up from Sydney, manly
Men who live to sail the turquoise sea, and
Gangs of noisy college kids. Rented scooters
Putter by. The beer's industrial swill. The pizza's
Fair. The seafood's very good. Cockatoos screech
From coconut palms. Forested mountains loom
Nearby, some of them islands in the sea.
Wallabies graze on cane field stubble.
The weather is tropical, always warm,
And, if you have the money, the living
Is easy. I'd go back this second if I had
The chance, but it's not somewhere
I could stay.


One About Literature

“Go ahead,” I thought. “I'm not that bored,”
As a line of prize-winning poets trooped by,
Each in a mouse-colored sweater and
Slacks. They came to the lectern, one
By one, to read chatty expressions
Of cynical hope, or conjure up spirits
Not quite believed, or pass along anecdotes,
Bleached of significance. Those all around
Me seemed more or less awed, squirming
In slacks and mouse-colored sweaters,
Pleased in a way, but also impatient,
As they had brought poems for the poets
To see. An hour passed slowly. I stifled
A yawn, got up and quietly made for the exit,
Having gotten to be that bored.


One About Mom

One day, perhaps, I'll run the risk of arrest
And peek into the windows of one of those
Houses with admirable mothers inside,
See them folding the laundry while
Watching TV, offering snacks and words
Of encouragement to their children
Who'll go on, if not exactly to greatness,
To living sufficiently prosperous lives,
And say, “Those are the mothers
Who people should have.” No one
Should have had my own, a broken
Creature, so timid and always
Convinced she was ill, who spent
Hours on the phone, and shattered
On holidays, cheated on Dad, hoping
That she could move up in the world
By shoving aside her rich man's wife.
That never happened. Now she's alone,
Still certain she's sick, she won't go outside.
She is folding her laundry and watching TV,
But I'll never go to peek into her window,
Not even if I want a snack.


One About Growing Feeble

Done by six. I mean six in the morning.
Played out, gasping, sweating and begging
The clock to go faster. I have to go home.
Another old man whose heart's made him
A baby, I punch out, but don't bolt the way
I once did. I make my escape at a stroll.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 58 times
Written on 2016-10-03 at 01:04

dott Save as a bookmark (requires login)
dott Write a comment (requires login)
dott Send as email (requires login)
dott Print text