July 2018
Jed Myers
medjyers@hotmail.com
medjyers@hotmail.com
I’ve been enthralled with verse since I was a kid, but it’s only since 9/11/01 that I’ve been committed to participating through poetry. I live in the Pacific Northwest and practice psychotherapy as a livelihood. Recent work is appearing in The Greensboro Review, The Briar Cliff Review, and DIAGRAM. Please visit at http://www.jedmyers.com .
Wynnefield
We had no rows of books in our houses.
We read the DC and Marvel comics
waiting for us on the magazine rack
at Millman’s. Mabel allowed it.
No folk songs were sung around us.
We had Ed Sullivan’s Sunday-night stars,
Judy Garland, Ella, Sinatra,
captured in a big black-and-white box.
There were no hardballs and no mitts.
No flat grass fields. We punched
pink rubber balls to the sky with our fists
over asphalt, and rounded chalk diamonds.
No one showed us what garlic was.
No helmets when we rode our bikes.
Across the Avenue were the Catholics,
who blamed us for killing their Christ.
We’d call on the cigarette machine
at the corner Sunoco. Ari would let us
pool our coins and pull the chrome handle
for Kents or Marlboros. He wouldn’t tell.
We’d savor the gasoline smell.
We’d never breathed in a bed of roses.
We didn’t know what lavender was.
By our own friends’ fists, we’d tasted
fresh blood under our noses. We played
our transistor radios’ Top 40 hits,
and each of us was the Duke of Earl.
We had no idea what a heron was.
We’d watch the street for the next Corvette.
To see once more what beauty was.
We didn’t know what an empire was.
When we grew up we were going to Mars.
Wynnefield
We had no rows of books in our houses.
We read the DC and Marvel comics
waiting for us on the magazine rack
at Millman’s. Mabel allowed it.
No folk songs were sung around us.
We had Ed Sullivan’s Sunday-night stars,
Judy Garland, Ella, Sinatra,
captured in a big black-and-white box.
There were no hardballs and no mitts.
No flat grass fields. We punched
pink rubber balls to the sky with our fists
over asphalt, and rounded chalk diamonds.
No one showed us what garlic was.
No helmets when we rode our bikes.
Across the Avenue were the Catholics,
who blamed us for killing their Christ.
We’d call on the cigarette machine
at the corner Sunoco. Ari would let us
pool our coins and pull the chrome handle
for Kents or Marlboros. He wouldn’t tell.
We’d savor the gasoline smell.
We’d never breathed in a bed of roses.
We didn’t know what lavender was.
By our own friends’ fists, we’d tasted
fresh blood under our noses. We played
our transistor radios’ Top 40 hits,
and each of us was the Duke of Earl.
We had no idea what a heron was.
We’d watch the street for the next Corvette.
To see once more what beauty was.
We didn’t know what an empire was.
When we grew up we were going to Mars.
“Wynnefield” first appeared in The Heartland Review.
© 2018 Jed Myers
© 2018 Jed Myers
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