Day in the Park
It’s all bumper cars
hitting and running
and the same old
merry-go-round
we can’t get off
It’s all about the photo-op
the selfie, the selfie
smoke and mirror fun house
and the dizzy spin of news
I’m wearing a bandana now
like Def Leppard in the 1980s
when Michael Jackson
told us bad was good
and MTV was all about the music
Before grade school cooties
became a reality
and free love and hugs
came with a price
Now we’re up the down staircase
and down the rabbit hole
where hot and cool
mean the same thing
With no reverse
we can’t go back
to when we spent our bus fare
on cotton candy
I walked all the way home
in broken flip-flops
Five miles in summer
and late for supper
I tried the wild mouse
but never the roller coaster
I thought our childhood
would last forever
________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United/ dVerse Poets Pub
June 21st, 2020 12:47 am
I thought our childhood
would last forever – as I grow older that distance to one’s own childhood is like a dull ache that never leaves.
June 21st, 2020 3:17 am
Well it did last for ever then and then suddenly we grew up, things changed and most of us had to conform and earn some money and we were torn between adventure and responsibility. What a great post this is.
June 21st, 2020 3:30 am
Sweet simple childhood days, miss them so much
June 21st, 2020 4:48 am
The past does seem so much simpler and easier when we look back on it, in the face of how things have turned out. I preferred life without selfies and ‘the dizzy spin of news’. It does feel like ‘we’re up the down staircase’.
June 21st, 2020 5:52 am
Yes, we do seem far from childhood now, our innocence irretrievably lost.
June 21st, 2020 9:00 am
This is incredibly potent! I too miss childhood days when everything was simpler than it is now. This poem should be set to music ??
June 21st, 2020 9:07 am
There’s something about staying home for days on end and just waiting that brings childhood back into the present. This captured that disorientation so well.
June 21st, 2020 11:37 am
I’ve carried over what I could from those days, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some things I was more than happy to leave behind.
June 21st, 2020 11:49 am
A bit of a roller coaster ride from then to now, so cleverly worded. Neat. Cool. Hot. And now
unbelievably Sick!
June 21st, 2020 12:07 pm
This is hard hitting in a beautiful way especially for folks of my generation! I have worn a bandanna like The Boss round my head since the 60s … my signature. Cheers.
June 21st, 2020 1:50 pm
Don’t feel bad. I’m one of the deluded too. I thought childhood would last forever. What is this adulting all about, anyway?
June 21st, 2020 1:53 pm
So many of us find ourselves in that position these days, watching life happening while wondering if things will ever be as they used to be. Dystopian living is a surreal thing…
June 21st, 2020 2:36 pm
This brings up the memories of small and infrequent carnival games as a kid. Very nicely done and thank you.
Also a reminder of the Dire Straits song “Tunnel of Love”
June 21st, 2020 3:16 pm
Love that song. I grew up in an amusement park town in Nantasket Beach, MA!
June 21st, 2020 6:24 pm
I think we all thought our childhood would last forever–now, I am not sure what to think–
June 21st, 2020 6:38 pm
I agree with Thotpurge in particular. This is a good write. 🙂
June 22nd, 2020 9:01 am
i miss my childhood too. but that is the case for everyone that is an adult i think. great write!
June 23rd, 2020 2:04 pm
We did think our childhood would last forever, dint we? I think back and wonder what I would have done more, but being in a good place right now, I think it was enough. But, the world is changing at a ridiculous pace, and it is tough to keep up with it.
June 23rd, 2020 10:33 pm
Beautifully expressed! Sadly, we cannot go back to the good old days of childhood when everything was fun and filled with mystery.
June 25th, 2020 4:51 pm
I love the end… if we could just make a little bit of childhood into our lives it would be so great.
June 25th, 2020 6:29 pm
Though we can’t go back in time physically our memories can take us there for a short visit. I try
to keep my inner child alive doing unexpected things, like running barefoot in the rain.
June 25th, 2020 8:23 pm
Lately, I see everything I do, including cleaning house, as playing. Simple fun. Happiness. Glow of life and living. That’s how it feels.
June 25th, 2020 11:30 pm
We definitely appear to be on a downward trajectory in a humanity sense. It’s a slick slimy surface with hollowness underneath these days.
Good but sad poem.
June 27th, 2020 10:20 am
We all remember that childhood innocence. No going back now…
July 5th, 2020 10:00 am
This is such a beautiful mirror, turning nastlagia into a wavy reflection of reality and back again, “before grade school cooties became a reality,” oooh that made me smile and sigh. The Wild mouse scared me more than the big wooden coaster, where it seemed to jump the track, was soo scary, I love all coasters now, to motion and spin and drop and flight, constrained, so as not to actually break one’s neck. I miss them, want to go back when the cooties has subsided somewhat. Those long walks home. So well done!!! This poem evokes this song for me.
July 6th, 2020 7:19 am
I enjoyed the Wild Mouse too, Colleen. I did also enjoyed the Wooden Roller Coasters at Paragon Park and Revere Beach. .I do not like the new style coasters that do corkscrews and go backwards.
July 6th, 2020 9:53 am
The Paragon Park roller coaster (1917) got a second life as The Wild One at Six Flags in Maryland and probably is still in use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHOEv4a9LQE