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echoes from wild horses
by Gabriel Ricard
Throw us under the bus heading into town.
Or just throw us over the last necessary telephone wire,
let the chemically imbalanced ballerinas tap
ridiculous sorrow on the back of our heads,
and then leave what’s left of us for the politically-correct crows.
It’s not a murder anymore.
It’s just a gathering of talented public servants,
who just so happen to know which sleeve our hearts are hiding under.
Widows have to be content to be rich in spirit.
The best homes in the best neighborhoods
are still the ones that stand alone,
and don’t need a skyscraper resting comfortably on top
catching the last of Peter Pan’s optimistic fan club.
No one ever goes inside,
but you can hear arguments,
and shopping carts, debating TV finales with stray cats
on a night where everyone’s outside
drinking spiked NyQuil,
and not speaking to each other.
There’s plenty of money around to buy these places.
Fix up the interior. Paint the walls something,
that won’t bleed all the way outside
into the grass. But the buyers are all temporary millionaires,
looking to take revenge on their childhood homes,
and ruin a couple of classic cars.
Some people just can’t let go.
Others develop real mean complexes,
over how easily that came to them in their youth.
Even the Atheists have been touched in the head
by a god of some kind.
Old men gamble on the echoes
of the wild horses trying to outrun the August blues.
Young men try to stop cabs
with nothing but great expectations and loud voices.
Every one of them remembers
the woman who sang to them on a payphone,
and told them everything was finally ready
to forgive itself.
They remember a little too often,
laugh a little too hard,
stay out a little too late,
cough up everything they breathed in,
and wind up too scared to visit a sadistic country doctor
in timeless carnival dress.
No one ever dies that way.
That’s the worst part.
Paranoid workaholics are beginning to wonder
if anyone ever really dies anymore.
Like everything else,
it seems to be taking forever,
and nothing we do
is half as much fun as it used to be
because of that.
10/05/2011 Posted on 10/05/2011
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 10/06/11 at 02:50 AM Great expectations, indeed. |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 10/06/11 at 03:13 AM "Old men gamble on the echoes
of the wild horses trying to outrun the August blues." This is pretty close to brilliant. |
| Posted by Ken Harnisch on 10/06/11 at 03:28 AM "Paranoid workaholics are beginning to wonder
if anyone ever really dies anymore."
This entire poem is a gem, but this line, read at my desk tonight, resonates like a psychic's direst verity. My compliments, sir!
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| Posted by A. Reed on 10/06/11 at 03:31 AM This is close to the best I ever read from you. (which may not be saying much I regret they are few). Phenomenonal. |
| Posted by James Zealy on 10/06/11 at 05:37 PM This is food for thought. I have read it several times now. This feels a lot like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse raining death, distruction and loss of dreams. All of us look back and see things differently then when we lived them, and it is not necessarily because it was easier because our memories are tainted with whatever images have been built since we lived that memory. Rebuilding dreams in our current life based on ones in our past are recipes for disaster, they are never the same or as satisfying. As an older man, yes we race the wild horses, but not because of fear, but because we know we are running out time to catch whatever glimpse of happiness we hope to achieve. |
| Posted by Joan Serratelli on 10/06/11 at 07:47 PM This poem gets better with every read. Perfect lines. Loved every word! |
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