The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/12/07

[BlueIris]

"I Had a Future"

O I had a future
A future.

Gods of the imagination bring back to life
The personality of these streets,
Not any streets
But the streets of nineteen forty.

Give the quarter-seeing eyes I looked out of
The animal-remembering mind
The fog through which I walked towards
       The mirage
That was my future.

The women I was to meet
They were nowhere within sight.

And then the pathos of the blind soul,
How without knowing stands in its own kingdom.
Bring me a small detail
How I felt about money,
Not frantic as later,
There was the future.

Show me the stretcher-bed I slept on
In a room on Drumcondra Road,
Let John Betjeman call for me in a car.

It is summer and the eerie beat
Of madness in Europe trembles the
Wings of the butterflies along the canal.

O I had a future.

—Patrick Kavanaugh

[BlueIris]

1. Kick.

[BlueIris]

2. Kick.

[BlueIris]

3. Geeze, this has to be one of the least popular threads ever.

[BlueIris]

4. Kick.