JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Where have all the characters gone

that decorated your childhood

Captain Marvel, Charlie Brown

where’s Popeye, Dagwood, Desperate Dan?

 

Where’s Asterix where’s Little King

Spy versus Spy perhaps finally

have bumped each other off

you  don’t see them around these days

and your Superman costume

doesn’t fit you any more

 

What happened to the things you loved

the inside of a cake bowl

licked by mixture-smeared fingers

kick-flinging a swing to treetop height

dizzy-rolling down a mown incline

sky-earth, sky-earth, mouth full of grass

 

Remember your amazing discovery

that girls were different from boys

in other ways besides

their hair, their frocks and giggles

remember ‘doctor, doctor’…

 

Looking under skirts in disbelief

not understanding that you were

viewing the rest of your life

stretched against the cotton