The Last Day of Childhood 


Friends would marvel
at two rope swings hung from the rafters

One thousand feet of newsprint slung on a spool
with a bucket of American Crayons (not Crayola)

Supplies to build great structures of the world
Legos, Tinker Toys, and Lincoln Logs
carried by caravans of Tonka Trucks

Superior to the Great Library of Alexandria:
picture books on geography, WWII, treasures of the art world
American history and Charles Addams cartoons
Archives of Donald Duck, Batman and Archie comics
        --selected by my sister
        --bought by my mother
        --read my me
        --and hauled away by my father

Off in the forbidden realms:
my grandfather's workbench
and its cast iron vice
that clenched and healed
dolls, bikes and chairs

In the opposing corner
whiteness and humming
of an ever industrious
washer and drier

Gurgling and rumbling
in dark rivers below
lies the crocodile of a sump pump

Tucked in a recess
like a scarab beetle
a dusty old bowling trophy

A royal chamber
enshrines artifacts as sacred as
treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb

And now
as distant as the buried bones of a lost caravan

When we left the house
my father inscribed his own hieroglyphs
on the center basement beam
abandoned to later civilizations.





Double Corner Lot


They’re demolishing the brick colonial
The one on the double corner lot 
That stood for 75 years
For two generations of one family.
 
They’re cutting down that 150 year-old maple
The one that stands in corner of the double corner lot
One tree, 150 rings
Shade from spring to fall.
 
The tree goes first
It took them all day
To chop off its limbs
Cut down its trunk
And grind up its stump.
 
A perfectly good tree 
Offering up another generation of green in May
To the brick house in the corner of the double corner lot
150 years gone in a day. 
 
The house goes second
It took them two days
To smash its brick and mortar
The second floor first
The first floor last. 

A perfectly good brick home
Ready to offer shelter to another family
On the corner lot
75 years gone in two days.





Coffee, Your History


Dark redeemer 
    carrying legends of Sumatra, Arabia, Columbia

Creator of cultures
     fuel for a Sufi’s whirling dance
     drink of protests by patriots 
     in the days of revolution
     drunk in heroic proportions 
     by Balzac and Beats
     made mad by your power

Drunk black 
     by my father 
     on the troop ship
     far side of the Pacific
     World War Two
     because green skin of slime congealed 
     on tins of curdled cream

The history 
    of why I drink you as a I do.





Three Worlds of Memory


You keep a memory in three competing worlds.

Digital:
     Scientists in white lab coats
     engineered a world
     that flawlessly remembers all your inputs,
     your memory outsourced to a secure location,
     like what a child thinks heaven is like,
     where you ask God every question you ever wanted.
     Until one day,
     the server crashes,
     or power is lost,
     and the screen goes dark.

Paper:
     Since the time of the Han
     the sheets have been there
     reliable, tangible, unfiltered,
     open to the page,
     and the words are the same
     as yesterday,
     the same as today,
     and will be the same tomorrow.
     A dense treatise, today's newspaper, a 3x5 card;
     you carry paper memory like a security blanket.
     until one day
     you misplace it
     and it gathers dust on a shelf.

Biological:
     You and your synapses are
     the ever present device.
     You could be naked on a desert island
     and it would be there with you
     all you need to do
     is exercise its muscles--
     no external source
     no object to hold
     nothing to lose
     till one day
     you forget.





Future Madman


Your morning visit 
with news and coffee 
Past and Present 
Three of you 
here and now 
but always 
distractions 
shadows at the door 
It's Future--eternal party crasher 
“Wait, I’ll be with you in a second.” 
“Not a chance,” snickers Future 
running down the street 
like a Halloween prankster 
laughing like mad.


©2014 John Kropf