Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing Lasts Forever they say, but sometimes I wish it would

The house where I was born still stands having good bones,

it’s now almost a hundred

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But like me its shell is not what it used to be

Worn and run down it still sits stately in the weeds

Time has taken its toll as new residents came and went

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When I look in the mirror, I think to myself

“He had good bones but look at him now!”

“What happened to all that hair… too much  Brylcream, I guess!”

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I remember living in that house when I was a child

I would love to walk through it once more with my brothers

visiting each room sharing indelible memories.

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I can see my mother rolling out pie dough on the table

Crawling up on the chair, I watched intently snitching a piece to taste

Can’t you smell it baking with sweet apple juice oozing out?

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There is my father sitting in the big chair working on his sermon

The plywood board he made that lays across the wide arms

It had a Cardinal applique on one corner and a Bluejay on the other

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The stairs were steep with a strong banister I slid down

Upstairs, my mom sat in the rocker reading books to us before bed

Gathering around in our pjs we listened intently

Epilogue:

Sadly, this is meaningless to my children and grandchildren

I wish I could give them a tour telling of each special memory

But without the memories, for them it would only be a kind gesture

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But nothing lasts forever and neither will my vivid memories

They are just ghosts that haunt me from time to time but soon gone

I heard it said that when a person dies, a library of information dies with them

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It does make me sad to think how life moves on

bringing its joys and sorrows fresh and new to each generation

but soon they too will be lost with the coming of then next

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Nothing in this life lasts forever

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Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Sanaa introduced us to Maggie Smith’s conversational style of poetry. She shared some of her poems with us and asked us to write one of our own.  My reference to Good Bones is a nod to her poem of that title.

Join us at:  https://dversepoets.com

Chernobyl

It was my first visit to Chernobyl since the reactor meltdown years ago. I grew up there as a child; rode the Ferris Wheel and Bumper Cars in the park. My father worked in a one of many factories owned by the government.

As our SUV pulled into the radiation zone, I could see things had changed. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and wild foxes roamed the fields nearby looking for rabbits and field mice. But, there was an eerie sad silence that seemed to wrap its arms around me.

Pulling up to the factory where my father went each day, I could see the jagged glass broken in the windows; the sagging doors were orange with rust. “No one left and no one came on the bare platform.” Hell must be like this I thought; memories of what once was…

Today at d’verse we are doing Prosery, combining poetry into a 144 word prose piece. Sarah gave a line form a poem that must be incorporated into our flash fiction piece. Our line today comes from a poem called Adelstrop by Edward Thomas. It is: “No one left and no one came on the bare platform.” 

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

Bing photo from a YouTube clip.

Memories (Flash Fiction)

Sitting in the driveway, under the old Maples, a long-forgotten song played on the car radio. It took him right back to that moment in time when he was sixteen. “Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue, with a love so rare and true…” floated from the speakers. Peggy Sue was one of those memories he had pushed back into the closet of his mind.
Under the maples, in the dark of the evening, he hesitantly gave her a kiss. It was the first for both of them. It all happened so quickly; and then she was off, back around the house.
Hormones raged, as they sat holding hands on the swing, under the naked bulb of the front porch light. Pandora’s box had been opened, never to be closed again.
Though time and circumstances changed their course. “These memories were left here with the trees.”

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Painting: Dwight L. Roth

Tonight at d’Verse we are writing Flash Fiction, which must include a line of a poem in our story. Stories are limited to only 144 words.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

Nostalgia

A friend of mine asked me to paint a picture of the family home for his aging father. It was torn down a few years earlier after he sold the house to a developer. All he had to show me was a photo with a  lot of bushes and trees growing in front of the house. By using that photo and asking him a lot of questions about details, I recreated his family home.  A few weeks ago his aunt called and wondered if I would do one for her. I finished it this week.This is house #2.

Nostalgia

What would you give to go home again

Back to the house that no longer stands

To the yard where you used to play

Nostalgia pulls on our heartstrings

Plays enchanting melodies of good times

Digging in the dirt with friends

Biking down the dirt road

Running barefoot on the wooded pathways

Playing Cowboys and Indians

Building forts in the woods

What would you give to be there again

Just as they once were many years ago

Some of us can go home again

But for many home is just a memory

A picture in the mind

A photo in the album

Or a painting on the wall

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Photo/painting: Dwight L. Roth