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Shel Silverstein: Pressed Between the Pages

by Rusty C Arquette


I climbed the stairs last Thursday
Through dust and darkness…
up narrow steps
and groped about for the light 
in the attic…

I saw the trunk sitting heavy and silent
in the center of the gloom…
I flipped latches and eased the lid upright
listening to the hinges cry a
tired lament…

Inside…
Beneath the collection of junk…
Sci-Fi movie posters from the 50’s
McGovern political buttons from the 60’s
a beaded leather jacket from the 70’s…
lay the aging prize

The clay-based print was fading…
the acid in the paper browning,
but there, in neat stacks sitting
were the Playboys of my youth…

I smiled and noted the ladies
Posing, pouting, and prudish
by the standards of today…
and though they beckoned
my male libido to pause…
I moved on instead…

I’d come in search of words 
and the line drawings 
that accompanied them…
Familiar pages presenting 
selected themes on nudist camps,
a pretentious orgy for swingers,
and cocktail parties of the hip…

The often  naked folks drawn here
Were the comic exaggerations 
of the beautiful people shown 
in the dusty black & white photos
that shared the page…

I couldn’t help but laugh
at the squiggly drawings
and the witty words…
I’d forgotten about 
the Scout Handbook parody,
and the ABZ’s…
still hilarious after all those years
in this dusty trunk…

Kids laughter rises high
from where the sidewalk ends
and the shell road stops…
happy sounds that remind me
of another neglected treasure…

The trunk is closed
the light goes off
and I’m back upon the stairs…
down in the kid’s toy strewn room…
next to the Velveteen Rabbit
a dozen Disney and two dozen Dr. Seuss
are more squiggly drawn treasures
with those familiar funny dancing words…
I sit Buddha like among the mess
the book cradled in my lap
each page brings a smile
each page brings a truth
about the bald headed man
the barefoot troubadour 
the menacing Turk with the dark eyes
who stares forever unchanged 
from the picture on the dust jacket
on the back of the book…

Brings truth about the reader
and all those who’ll read again
it’s the way we are
silly, lonely, and so damned incomplete…
He knew this
he knew the feelings
like always falling up
when no one was around…

This is where my son finds me…
“What cha’ doin pop?” he questions
a tiny furrow across his brow…
“Just visiting an old friend, son”
and he quickly slides into my lap…
“He’s here in the book?” he asks,
“On every single page…just look”
We both flip the pages wide eyed
reading poems by the score…
Laughing at the witty rhymes
and all the squiggly drawings…
like we’ve done 
a hundred times before…

“So where’s the man now, pop,
who made this funny book?”

Suddenly it came back to me
just why I was sitting there…
The man was gone at 68
moved on too damn soon 
died alone on Mother’s Day 
but little boys 
don’t want to hear the dreary…
for them life’s alive and young

I answered, “He’s right in here”
and patted his small chest
“And in here” patting mine
“In your heart pop?”
“Yep”

He pulled out another book
the green cover gave it away…
the squiggly wiggly tree…

“You must really like’em pop...
because I keep the people 
I love in my heart”

Truth comes in many sizes…

06/15/2000

Author's Note: For Shel Silverstein..one of a kind..and my son Duster...another one of a kind...two people I keep right here... (RCat pats his chest..smiling)

Posted on 08/26/2006
Copyright © 2024 Rusty C Arquette

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by A. Paige White on 08/26/06 at 02:07 PM

Loved this Rusty. I paid $16.00 a few years ago for one... "Oh, the places you'll go" for graduates. It's a treasure. Children are awesome teachers. Especially grandchildren. They are the dessert of life's meal.

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Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 08/27/06 at 12:12 AM

Irrepressible Shel Silverstein - I will love him forever. Thanks for the memories.

Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 08/27/06 at 02:59 AM

Wonderfully warm, tender, and nostalgic. Especially liked the stanzas concerning Shel and ending with father and son!

Posted by Charles E Minshall on 08/30/06 at 10:38 PM

This one is funtastic Rusty as is Shels books...Charlie

Posted by Leslie Ann Eisenberg on 09/02/06 at 06:47 PM

incredible. i know my ABZ's too, and still enjoy them, and now with my son. thank you for sharing your memories. beautifully rendered! PK

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