28 Poems - 7

When we are young


When we are young, we try to hear tomorrow,
like drooling dogs who catch a far-off pitch
and chase it down, through briars, maze and ditch

down to the gameless grounds of cold regret
where old men brood in self-creating sorrow,
stroking their lost potential like a pet,

their doggéd lives made paltry and defrauded
of promise by the promise of repletion
which they pursued, bedevilled and be-godded

by deeds and signs, to dubious completion,
inheriting not power, peace and quiet
but just the ruins of their parents' riot.


When we are young, we hear the words of life,
their meaning meant for us and us alone
like sleeping beauties meant to be a wife --

like street signs in the Land of Do-As-You-Please
where every road ends with a thrill or a throne
and not the taunting of a final tease

or the dark nightmare of the one-and-only
that leads down to the hell of might-have-been
where we will wake, more castaway than lonely,

needing to find a devil for our sin,
looking for something that can take the blame
for why we never lived up to our name.


When we are young, we translate all we hear --
the names of streets, the words behind deep glances --
into a language free of loss and fear

and full of something more like verbal chances
than definitions, flexible to nudge,
and not a sentence spoken by a judge --

something to cherish, like a hunting dog
who tracks our kill and never runs away
until one day it leaves us in a fog,

repeating the heart of a rote speech or a song
till the words escape us, and we end the hard day
sitting and drinking, wondering what went wrong.


copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells