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seeing is sort-of bellieving
by Gabriel RicardI’ll take the dreams and old friends
who show up when the heatstroke kicks in,
and I’m looking to find the part of K Street
that can be ripped out and wrapped around me
like a blanket as cold as Hell’s best ice cream factory.
I’d like to think they’d love me
for who I am. Some might even reach out
to catch me when my eyes close up shop
for the night, and
It won’t always be easy to entertain the room
by leaping from one unpredictable chair to another.
One of these days
I’m just going to stop talking to people
who don’t say a bloody word
until they’re around the corner
and taking phone calls again
from all major points in the real world.
Then I’d like to stop wondering how the bus
is able to drive up the side of every skyscraper
with a whisper but nothing even close
to what I used to think praying ought to be.
Just believing would be a nice change of pace.
My trust had a lot shorter run at youth
than I ever did.
My honesty
remains more or less intact
and absolutely useless when I stand to gain
something from faking a little courage
and pretending this suit is brand-new.
Cowards quit a thousand performances
before they roam around the world long enough
to realize that everyone is a lot more interested
in the tone of your confession
than what you did to pass the time
in the rainy summer of that one year.
Hell,
it might have been
the other one you remember so fondly.
Or that strange year
when I came out west to see
if you were only small and mean
when you knew the payphone I was at
had a chance of self-destructing at any moment.
We may not have lived well
or found a new way to get to revenge
by impressing the other creeps at the hotel
with all our bad decisions,
but at least we got everything we paid.
There’s not enough of that
in my life these days.
06/01/2011 Posted on 06/01/2011
Copyright © 2025 Gabriel Ricard
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by James Cavet on 06/01/11 at 09:43 PM A little rambling here and there but great passages in between; seemingly darkly humorous and somewhat personal at the same time. Absorbing, quirky; works very well. |
| Posted by Ken Harnisch on 06/02/11 at 12:47 PM "Just believing would be a nice change of pace.
My trust had a lot shorter run at youth
than I ever did."
Gabriel, I plunge into your poetry seeking diamonds of profundity and rarely am I ever at a loss after the expedition.
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| Posted by Ava Blu on 06/02/11 at 10:22 PM I didn't see rambling in this at all, but who I am to speak when everything I post is rambling. It does feel a tad different from your other work. It feels...less like a short story and more of a decided poem, if that makes any sense. I like it. |
| Posted by Scott Utley on 06/08/11 at 09:24 AM I just meandered over here to listen - my soul food. |
| Posted by LK Barrett on 06/15/11 at 12:56 PM ...ravishing, ravaged...when do the faithful find the time to become so worldly wise? as sparely elegant as ever, friend...thank you for the write...lkb |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 06/22/11 at 01:18 AM Excellent example of how a well worded title is a major factor in getting someone to read a poem.
To me the very heart of the sentiment...inspiration: It won’t always be easy to entertain the room by leaping from one unpredictable chair to another.
And I realy like how this harkens back to the title: Just believing would be a nice change of pace. My trust had a lot shorter run at youth than I ever did.
I also enjoyed the second last stanza in how it sets up the closing. You might even consider dropping those last two lines for added impact, although they hold some special value to you the author. Kudos for another great read!
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| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 11/05/12 at 01:25 PM poets should rule the world, if only their own, if rule is the right word. if not rule, then they should be its spokesmen, rather than having lesser than poets lording it over the speech patterns of the world, who are speechifying for the likes of you and I. poets, what do we know? nothing, perhaps, perhaps everything? perhaps a mixture of both. and perhaps that is the key, that to know everything would stand in the way of poetry and the nothing that we don't know makes for all the creative difference in poetry. |
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