How did I go from being the class clown to being the professor?
How did I go from being the splendid fool to being the old man of cynical angst?
And fuck!
I’m thinking this will be a bad poem if I don’t give it meter, rhyme and form.
No.
To shit fuck cock cunt hell with that!
I’m bald now,
I’ve got a gut that makes me look like I’m expecting,
And the eyes that look in the mirror remember only one chin.
I don’t know who I’m staring at these days.
I can only think of how serious things are in the world.
I can only focus on my job, and politics,
And being gouged by every governmental and corporate entity there is.
But that wasn’t always me.
It wasn’t.
I walked after midnight tonight,
A cigar in one hand,
A ginger ale bottle filled with sparkling wine in the other,
I had my music and my headphones,
And I wished I could go back to the time when I first heard
“Take Me Home” by Phil Collins,
“Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits,
& “Masquerade” by Berlin.
I wished I wasn’t growing old.
I wished that death wasn’t coming for me,
Like it did David Bowie, Glenn Fry, and John Wetton.
I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me,
And as I face my decline,
I fear I do so in too cowardly a fashion.
Good friends visited me this week.
I saw too little of them,
Because I had midterms for my master’s,
Papers to grade,
And parent conferences.
It felt like Atlas had less weight upon his shoulders,
And what I could give to those whom I love
Was a pittance,
Coins thrown to beggars,
Rather than riches bestowed upon those who’d earned it.
But in our moments together,
We recalled days of spray painting penises on gymnasium walls,
Taking magic mushrooms,
Streaking through parks,
And laughing like nothing other than laughter existed.
I looked at the man in the mirror,
And I asked myself
Where did that great joy go?
How was it supplanted
By the inglorious stick now lodged up my ass?
It made me weep.
And so I walked after midnight,
And I encountered some high school students,
Unsure whether or not to flee at my approach,
Because they had eggs,
And they were throwing them at cars.
I did not reproach them.
“Friends”, said I, “Try not to cause any accidents.
Save the eggs for the people who are driving like assholes.
Have fun.
Remember this night.
This will be a story you tell and re-tell
When you’re a bald, wrinkled fool like me.
Know that maturation doesn’t mean losing your sense of humor.”
I’m not sure what they thought about my words.
As a teacher, I’m used to being casually ignored,
But they were pleased to be unimpeded in their hijinks,
Which was good enough for me.
Regardless, I slept very well afterward,
Very well indeed.