poem post #4

Written in Fire

I’ve never been much on nostalgia.
To me it reeks of roadside death.
But I can’t help thinking things were better
when we went to rock shows and held up lighters.

Back then,
we all carried the flame.
We flickered.
We glowed.
We shimmered.
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.

The act itself took forethought, a little planning.
If you didn’t smoke cigarettes,
maybe you made a special stop—
picked up a Bic on your way into town.
If you did smoke,
maybe you brought an extra,
just in case yours crapped out
at the moment of truth

But these days,
it’s all flip phones.
Flat blue panes of light,
each one like the other.
Electric.
Cold and blue.

To me, it seems a sacrilege
to pixilate our love like this.
No matter the intention,
if you ask me,
the whole thing just seems wrong.

I miss it like it was.
The way the wheel bit into your thumb,
The quick flash of the flint.
The warm glow.
The heat.

Sometimes,
if you held the thing up there long enough
it even hurt a little,
like a good tribute should.


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© 2009, Curt Alderson. All rights reserved in accordance with the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.