(no subject)

[johnny9fingers]

A nasty piece of poetry for Madame e_compass_rosa. Probably helps if you know something of UK automobiles in the late 20th Century, but hopefully Madame will get the idea, no matter how poorly executed.

With apologies to e e cummings & Robert Johnson.

 

You know the way a car rusts:

Love rusts in the selfsame way.

It may stand, unpolished,

Unlooked after.

Then some years down the road from new

It fails to start

And gently falls apart.

 

And then one wonders

If repair

Is merely throwing good money

After bad.

 

Still one sees, along the road,

Gleaming ancient Astons, Bentleys

Even older.

Manoeuvring from their

Cotton wool garages

Parading for the world to see.

 

(I had a red Ferrari once,

 Was too young to appreciate its grace and power.

 One evening, drunk, uninsured,

 I drove it into a tree.

 

 Irreplaceable loss.

 

 I did once borrow, without I might add, the owner’s knowledge,

 An E-Type, but then my conscience

 Made me put it back

 Before the owner missed it

 

 With hardly a scratch.)

 

And now I wonder

Should I spend my time and effort

Restoring my old and battered Escort.

 

And if I don't

Will I spend my days from now

In hired cars

And taxis.

 

J.B.

22/01/90

 

Comments

[e-compass-rosa.livejournal.com]

I find this to be a sad poem, and were I not so exhausted (and sad) I'd actually have much more to say about it. Thank you for posting it -- I read it earlier and have been thinking about often today since it echoes certain questions I've been asking of myself.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

The likelihood is that you're both going through a lot of these reflective processes. You both need to find support, and probably from the outside. Chaps tend to get sniffy and proud about things, manliness being what it is.

As is, according to a chum, when you get to your fifties, it's all lifts ('rides' in American) from friends. I think it's still possible to 'date' in ones forties. Most of my chums, with and without kids, are doing such.

As Henry Reed said 'As we get older, we do not get any younger...'
(But I prefer 'The Naming of Parts'.)

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

did you really own a ferrari once before you crashed it, or was that the metaphor for your red for d escort, before it gave up the ghost?

; '