Carl Newlen

Driving By My Old House, Wellsville Ohio

- July 10, 2009, 3:16 pm | Poetry

---

At Johnson`s Body Shop and Car Wash
I turn right on Commerce Drive,
the windows down,
radio playing a song to drive by.
I`m a long way from home
on this street I used to live.

Our house is blue and white now,
two cherry trees gone, and finding
their memory feels like falling
in my dreams. I remember best
baseball games on Fourth Street,
the giant buckeye tree for first,
a maple for third, and home runs
over the telephone line.

I learned here to keep my head down
on grounders, the sound of fly balls
fighting through the trees:
Sha...Clunk...Clunk...Sha...

All around me are old friends,
strangers now. I loop the ramp
to Route 7 speeding away,
making the wind hard
against my face. I`m alive
in June. I turn up the radio
singing my own words:

    You can never go back

Something like that.

---

Keywords:

---

Add to del.icio.us | Digg

Recently Added:

1. A Heart Shaping - New Poems
2. Eat Your Spaghetti - Raising Children
3. I Buried My Wife - New Poems
4. Country Cat - Children`s Story
5. New Story - Notes To Read While Falling

Copyright © 1992-2011 Carl Newlen, All Rights Reserved