in this the city of my discontent

too many old friends removed from the scene
lost to anger, death, and transferred by success
lost to my foolishness, and their pride
and the normal mode of breaking apart—
the sand on the beach in its helpless geography
and I have been here with my heart little more
than a passenger on someone else's hindenburg
for two decades now. No one seems to keep track,
but I know all the pitiful tales from the various rings
worn by us allo, one weekend or another, 70s, 80s, 90s.
soon the millenium will wander through these petty days
and I will imagine where you have all gone.
once again left behind in my naifte, in my sour guilt.
in this coffin of poems & songs, acting
as if I knew something.


(Apologies to Vachel Lindsay who wrote a much better poem by this title. Springfield, however, is the city we shared in our discontent, though he was dead twenty years by the time I arrived on the planet, and nearly 45 by the time I got Springfield. The punctuation is wrong, this is little more than a standard lament. Adieux to all those who may be the source of this piece. I wish you well, in this life and the next.)