As a kid I imagined the future
As crystalline cities in space:
The great life ahead would be translucent times
Lived out in a fantasy place
Instead, I’m still in bricks and mortar,
I’ve more of a cosmic house loan —
And the closest I get to the world out beyond
Comes from my Buzz Lightyear
Ringtone
The world creeps forward, sometimes, but
Nerf football was a lunge –
To take the world’s most violent game
And play it with
A sponge
Three kids bored on a rainy day
Can’t go out to run or play;
Purposeless, milling about –
Sister brings a board game out
Lights go out in a windowless room,
One thing penetrates the gloom –
Green ghost glowing in a spooky town
All forget the rain pours down
We should know where we come from,
Where we get our ideals:
So, everything I need to know
I learned from having Hot Wheels
Like: if you want to get somewhere
Its not how fast you go,
But how well you prepare the track
That makes you fast or slow
And how, if winning’s what you need
And seek most avidly,
Then all the pushing in the world
Is not worth
Gravity
To Kindergarten I was forced
Without being consulted;
And then you hand me this to do?
I’m totally
Insulted
I love completely this accursed thing
(With its LCD screen and its 8-bit graphics)
In the way of all first loves:
Idealizing its virtues
Overlooking its imperfections
More for the memory of how I felt for the first time
Than for the quality of the experience itself
(First published April, 2014. – Owen)
When toys were the subject of my dreams
I was a happy child, indeed;
With flying ships and laser beams
My every thought, my drink and feed
Reality soon came to call
And I crestfallen, most of all
With feeling dull reality
That I would no one special be
I had to find the strength I lacked
In all, the self’s more than it seems;
I knew that I could fly from back
When toys were the subject of my dreams
Her mind’s at home in a miniature world –
Child of seven in her warm p.j.’s –
Head to the floor with the lights down low
Solstice train with its lights ablaze
Party inside for the well-dressed folk
Dining and dancing and sharing a story;
Child transported by effortless joy
Through imagined
Glory
