Ingrate
Oh, why didn’t you have a switchblade
to danger my young eyes with,
or do a stint in deep cover so the stories
would be better, so dark, so blue?
Years riding the rails, casting spells,
breaking hearts of small town slatterns
all up and down the line, a ledger of sons
cursing your name every Father’s Day?
Be a one-hit wonder whose ear worm
gets licensed for a Tarantino film,
residuals that bury those lean years
of box cornbread and canned beans?
Just look at what I have to work with:
Lay-Z-Boy recliner with cat-clawed back,
sneakers greened from having mowed the lawn,
snoring, ice conspiring to water down your drink,
slobbery dreams in which you’re not you,
hardly the stuff of poetry: it’ll have to do.
3 thoughts on "Ingrate"
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I like how to poem starts romantic and adventurous but makes the turn to reality, where the true pathos lives. Very good, Bill. Despite the last line — hardly the stuff of poetry: it will have to do — this poem is successful.
“Be a one-hit wonder whose ear worm
gets licensed for a Tarantino film,
residuals that bury those lean years
of box cornbread and canned beans?”
Impressive poem, and that incredible stanza earned its place. Another great write, Bill.
lots of good lines. Love “a ledger of sons
cursing your name every Father’s Day?”