POETRY FROM THE PAST

My relatives in Brooklyn have kept the same schedule since the early 90’s, meaning they go to a Free Brunch program at the old folks’ center every Friday. Since they haven’t changed the lock on the front door for decades, either, the key I took back in time with me works fine.

I currently rent my own place on the other side of Brooklyn (Time travel requires me to stay hidden—especially from those who would recognize me). But ever since I arrived here from the year 2004, I’ve been tempted to stop by. Back in 1999, I spent my entire summer here, seeing the sights, eating dim sum, catching my first glimpse of NYU. I left some clothes in the guest room. They’re still there, and lord knows I could use them, since I couldn’t fit much luggage into the "Mr. Peabody."

While packing the aforesaid clothes into a garbage bag, I stumbled across an old journal which I had kept during the summer. It was an idea I had, since my plan had been to drive up from Miami by car, to jot down descriptions and impressions of places I passed, as well as my regular, random thoughts.

I don’t know what happened to the journal between 1999 and 2004. Either I lost it, or quite possibly one of the relatives threw it away. But I will be taking this newly-unearthed copy back with me to 2004. I can’t part with it; it’s so much fun waxing nostalgic about experiences that occured half-a-decade ago (Even if, according to the calendar on the wall, they also happened less than a month ago).

Also fun: Reading the ill-advised poetry I once attempted to compose. I don’t know what I was thinking, though apparently I thought I could write a sonnet.

POEMS FROM THE JOURNAL:

"Sonnet"

To love unwisely is to love the best
For wisdom grows with every longing sigh
Old Prudence envies every fool’s caress
Being fool himself, though not fool ‘nough to try.
Be lucky those whose hearts remain untouched?
Love unbetrayed makes blessed infant state
The milk for them tastes always sweet enough
‘Til Fate’s cruel course is heaped upon their plate.
Then twelve years misery brought down all at once
Miss Misery, heart as ice-blue as her eyes
"Is this adulthood?" asks the lovesick runt
"Or just some random unwelcome surprise?"
One day, such whining persons do repent
Realizing that misfortune sometimes comes
And love is like a traffic accident
If it don’t kill, it leaves you shocked and numb
Yet loving false is natural as to breathe
More false the love, the more true love relieves.
-1999

"Rhyming Verse (Written to a Blue-Eyed Japanese Girl with a Fixation on French-Fried Potatoes)"

Shall I compare thee to this plate of fries
Left underneath the heat lamp for an hour?
Their dull-brown skins glow nothing like your eyes
Which God had burnished blue like milk gone sour.
Or was heredity what fixed their tone,
The way that genes made spuds so smooth and round?
Unlike a whooping cough or kidney stones
The finer traits have roots fixed in the ground.
So dare I say that you’re potato’s kin?
How many spuds attended NYU?
Before you say my logic’s wearing thin
Hear out these final lines—you’ll find they’re true:
For you were soaked in books, like fries in oil
So you’ll be gowned as they are wrapped in foil.
-1999