I Could Do Anything
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 So, what of it?
I like to smoke dope
and get stupid in the middle of the night.
I swear it keeps me young,
or at least forgetful,
which is like being young,
because you don’t know as much then,
although I thought I knew everything,
just everything.
Back then I always felt like
I was on the verge of becoming famous.
We were all going to be discovered;
we were going to make great strides
in world-changing fields of study
and people would take our pictures
and talk about us years later like we knew what we were doing.
The problem was
we were all so good at everything
that we ended up doing everything mediocre.
Now I wish I had been like one of those kids
you know, those savants,
who play the violin like a master
but never advance beyond stick figures with anything else.
That way, you, me, that other guy,
we’d all be something,
at least something bigger
that would have people know our names.
But I'm okay with this now.
I mean, I get to hang out,
do pretty much as I please.
My mother used to ask me
why are you always jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire
when you shouldn't even be in the frying pan in the first place?
I guess that's how I got here,
but it's not so bad, uh uh.
Least I know that I've got talents, more than one.
I could do just about anything.
Reader Comments (9)
I think that you want the third line to read "and get stupid in the middle of the night." Otherwise it clunks and it's too early in a poem for there to be a clunk. It stopped me.
But then I pushed through.
The piece is so sad. It's like the kids I used to teach in Providence, RI who though they were overweight by fifty pounds, had never played on a team, and refused to practice, still believed that they were going to the NBA. It's a sad piece. Depressed the hell out of me.
Thanks for pointing out my missing "the". I had intended for one to be there.
I didn't think it was all that sad.
Maybe they do things differently down there in Providence. Again, it's the honesty vs. gloom thing. Nice work, I thought.
I like it. I especially like that it seemed to be going one place, and then I end up somewhere altogether different.
nothing wrong with a little dope. :)
I liked this - sad depends on your perspective. I do like the way it starts in one place, wanders out, and comes back to where it started - kind of like ... you know ... being high -- like, not that I would know ANYTHING about that -- no, no
It felt as if you have written about my life.
gautami
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2007/03/soul-ecphrasis-poetry-thursday.html" REL="nofollow">Soul
I feel a bit of a passer-by, issuing random shootings of poems, but 98 is a tall-order!
The poem struck out, sizzled in its pan, beckoned a closer look:
One stanza that stood out among the many:
Back then I always felt like
I was on the verge of becoming famous.
We were all going to be discovered;
we were going to make great strides
in world-changing fields of study
and people would take our pictures
and talk about us years later like we knew what we were doing.
"The innocence of childhood, the moment in time when the weight of the world hadn't yet found a place to settle upon our shoulders. When possibility, probability weren't entwined with nonsensical things as reality and constraint."
I think the process of capturing that, the irreverence of a proclamation that "I want that feeling again and I'll smoke pot to do it" was a fantastic one.
gosh, this is a good poem. I love how the reader is sucked into the rationalizations. Great.
I keep coming back to this poem. The line, "Back then I always felt like
I was on the verge of becoming famous" really makes me think of myself as a teenager. I wish I was still that cocky and confident.