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too strange to be home
by Gabriel RicardThis town is too violent to be Heaven.
It’s too unpredictable to be Hell.
Why does it have to be so specific?
It’s just another place I know a little about.
I can tell you which empty department store
is haunted by the stubborn details
that only appear at night.
I can tell you which gas station sells smokes
to seven-year-old hoodlums.
Notice how many women on the two busier streets
ignore me. Or pretend I’m a notorious stranger from the West Coast,
and that I’m the crazy one for denying this.
Watch the way I cross the street at weird points,
and how certain models of cars make me jumpier than others.
You can call this place whatever you want.
Just don’t call it home. Don’t be anything but a tourist
I won’t put you up for more than a week,
and I won’t borrow more than a hundred dollars
in that space of time.
Please,
don’t find anyone who waits until after the car crash
to sing about love, sex and peace as a singular dream.
Don’t audition for bands with promise and ambition to spare.
This is not the only place in the world,
in which the setting sun makes the park
look brand-new all over again.
I would have left years ago. I have a suitcase packed,
and I have excuses ready for anyone who tries to stop me.
Wrote them down,
put them in a drawer,
and I haven’t been back that way since.
Probably never will.
Smoking and the weather have slowed me down.
I have received my cease-desist-relax-sink-don’t-swim letter
telling me to stop fighting for my sanity
with a walking and talking fever of a hundred and ten.
So, hey, if you’re smart,
for a change,
clear-headed,
for the time being,
and you actually do leave,
you can always think about
taking me with me.
Ha.
Just kidding.
Ha. Ha.
Like I would ever trust you
to put up with me for the time it would take
for us to find the kind of hotel where the nuns
are just dancing to pay for acting lessons.
We’re old friends.
We might have even died for each other once.
But I don’t want to ask you for any favors.
I like you too much to want to owe you a blessed thing.
03/19/2012 Posted on 03/19/2012
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Lori Blair on 03/21/12 at 08:42 PM Excellent write as always..and just so thought provoking and how i do agree with your words! your echo runs wild within my heart and soul! thanks! |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 03/22/12 at 01:45 PM for me, the fuse of this poem is ignited by the last three lines which are the splendid spark to set off a string of images, which take on lovelier and more interesting shapes and connotations as they are strummed along. |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 03/26/12 at 04:41 PM "This is not the only place in the world,/in which the setting sun makes the park/look brand-new all over again." I'm very fond of this image. |
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