{"id":2068,"date":"2010-12-01T04:47:58","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T04:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=2068"},"modified":"2010-12-01T04:47:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T04:47:58","slug":"a_poem_i_wish_id_written","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/01\/a_poem_i_wish_id_written\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem I Wish I’d Written"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I received a much-appreciated email from my friend Karen<\/a>, who’d read my annual holiday mope<\/a> and wanted to let me know my dark feelings weren’t all that unusual. She also wanted to forward something she thought I’d like, a poem she’d seen that “seemed very much like something [I could] have written.” I smirked at the idea, remembering that my last experiment with this particular literary form was back in 1990, just after I’d broken up with this one particular girl and was convinced there would never be another, and my fate was to be unceasing heartbreak and loneliness and hair-metal ballads about the same. (Hey, I was only 20, and not an especially mature 20-year-old at that). Let us simply say the results of my poetic efforts weren’t exactly, um, good<\/i>, and then we’ll politely turn away from the sobbing idiot in the corner…
\nBut hey, I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the cliche goes — you see why I wasn’t much of a poet? — so I followed Karen’s link and, well, darned if it does<\/i> sound like something I could’ve written, if only I had any talent at all for writing poetry. In a strange example of synchronicity, it even evokes my memories of the last year I was driven by hurt to scratch out a few talentless lines of free verse, as if the man I am now were looking back across a couple decades and finally able to say what he wasn’t able to say then, in the way he wanted to say it but couldn’t.
\nOr something like that. Maybe I just like the imagery of old T-birds and open roads and Cecil B. DeMille. The poem is below the fold, should you wish to read it for yourself…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

“Cruising with the Beach Boys”<\/p>\n

by Dana Gioia<\/p>\n

So strange to hear that song again tonight
\nTravelling on business in a rented car
\nMiles from anywhere I’ve been before.
\nAnd now a tune I haven’t heard for years
\nProbably not since it last left the charts
\nBack in L.A. in 1969.
\nI can’t believe I know the words by heart
\nAnd can’t think of a girl to blame them on.
\nEvery lovesick summer has its song,
\nAnd this one I pretended to despise,
\nBut if I was alone when it came on,
\nI turned it up full-blast to sing along \u2013
\nA primal scream in croaky baritone,
\nThe notes all flat, the lyrics mostly slurred.
\nNo wonder I spent so much time alone
\nMaking the rounds in Dad’s old Thunderbird.
\nSome nights I drove down to the beach to park
\nAnd walk along the railings of the pier.
\nThe water down below was cold and dark,
\nThe waves monotonous against the shore.
\nThe darkness and the mist, the midnight sea,
\nThe flickering lights reflected from the city \u2013
\nA perfect setting for a boy like me,
\nThe Cecil B. DeMille of my self-pity.
\nI thought by now I’d left those nights behind,
\nLost like the girls that I could never get,
\nGone with the years, junked with the old T-Bird.
\nBut one old song, a stretch of empty road,
\nCan open up a door and let them fall
\nTumbling like boxes from a dusty shelf,
\nTightening my throat for no reason at all
\nBringing on tears shed only for myself.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Original source here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I received a much-appreciated email from my friend Karen, who’d read my annual holiday mope and wanted to let me know my dark feelings weren’t all that unusual. She also wanted to forward something she thought I’d like, a poem she’d seen that “seemed very much like something [I could] have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-ramblings","category-the-bookshelf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}