I thought of Lenny and George when I saw these two men today
One big and strong and completely dumbstruck
The other lean and quick, shifty eyed, and assertive
They stood on the off ramp corner of I-10 and Litchfield
Felt gray hat at their feet, the kind that my great grandfather wore
In faded pictures from a time I should have lived in
The kind I begged off some small wrinkled man when I was 17
And in love with wearing old hats that still carried the scent
Of other lives I should have led but that were lived
By people more fortunate, sometimes less so, than me
I saw these men with their cardboard sign
And thought of the way books used to be made
Heavier covers, leather or cloth overlay on the hardback
Sewn stitching, not this new glue paperback crap
I remember my old lives when I hold my dust covered titles
Pages that reek of musty ghosts, locked in time
Choking on the ink that fades inside their throats
Until someone gently breaks open the coffin and begins to read
The lines with voices that they cannot recognize
Teasdale, Dark of the Moon, 1926,
Milton, Collected Poems, 1851,
Who wrote these lines, names penciled in you, best wishes
Handed down, lost and found over generations
Have I held you once before – can you feel me returning to myself
I named them Lenny and George… they traveled with Charlie
Steinbeck himself would have written them into immortality
I could only trade them a hamburger for my daydream and these words

06/17/2006

Posted on 06/18/2006
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