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Apple Cart Man (a song)

by Eric Hinkle

The man with the apple cart in his hands
Goes bustling down and out across the empty lands
The people he meets are deadbeats with vacant heads
As far as he's concerned, they're all but dead
But the apple man trudges on
Up and over the horizon
Only stopping to eat and sleep
and to sell apples to the people he meets
and like a good businessman, he always greets
even the winos living on the dirty streets

He's such a tragic, lonely man
He's all smiles on the outside
but he has woeful, sunken eyes
that have seen it all,
all the horrors of the world
Now they're glossy and gloomy and stinging
The warning bells in his head have quit their ringing
His youthful voice has stopped its singing
With all the years of apples he's been bringing

He's a middle-aged man but you would never think it
White hair and wrinkled skin
and short breaths, he seems ancient
He used to be compassionate, with a golden heart
But now he's too olden to play the part
Just goes through the motions like he crosses the oceans
Spreads pity like a plague from city to city
Selling apples from his cart to buy warm booze for his heart
He's a dreadfully unhappy man, doing all he knows he can

He doesn't have it in him to stop and live awhile
His pride is non-existent, his self-esteem lower than dirt
He's got no ambition and no curiosity
He's on a dead end path to his dead end life
He's got no joy or wonder or love or thought
He's a hopeless case, a desperately lost cause
But he knows exactly what he wants to do
And he's going to do it now
Look at him go!

He's the man with the apple cart in his hands
Goes bustling down and out across the empty lands
The people he meets are deadbeats with vacant heads
As far as any of them are concerned, they're all dead
But the apple man lives on.


2005

11/19/2008

Author's Note: What? Where did this come from? Beats me. Some cringe-worthy rhymes and tell-y lines, but it has a lively melody :D I decided not to revise this at all - straight from my high school notebook. I don't know if I realized I was stealing themes and phrases from Ray Davies (Kinks dude)- I was just trying to emulate him. Cuz that's pretty original. Yeah. I think I'll stop posting old stuff now...

Posted on 11/19/2008
Copyright © 2024 Eric Hinkle

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 11/19/08 at 07:03 AM

I thought it was pretty good, actually.

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