Trafficking in Dreams, a poem
We sat on the worn stone steps of summer
on salty Brooklyn nights in Dyker Heights,
senior year pending, pregnant with promise.
Hours of sipping cokes, jamming sessions.
Stan on drums. Tony played keyboard.
You sang bass and strummed a new guitar.
Your saucy sister chorine sprinkled star dust.
We were just kids trafficking in dreams.
You’d drive me home at curfew in your
dad’s blue Nova, into a violet dusk, the
maple shadows standing guard by Mom’s.
Now gone. Gone, you and our old roost . . .
No more of your music. No old friends.
Just meandering the strangest streets,
mumbling something off-key, strumming
the memory of you, a new guitar, and the last
of the summers when we trafficked in dreams.
“Of love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me …” Walt Whitman
© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers
We continue with the current recommended read: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read.
LESSON THIRTEEN: HINDER THE ONE-PARTY STATE “The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.” Prof. Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 