JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

There’s a house, huge and barren

yet mine I know with endless rooms

strange, unfamiliar in varying shapes and sizes

I’ve been here before in times forgotten;

lonely and gaunt it stands

on a hill or perhaps in a valley

of my mind.

My house, my new, old house

 

There’s a car sometimes large at other times small

cream or brown, a car I bought

to replace the one I took to be fixed

at a repair shop that has closed, doesn’t exist.

It’s sad these cars I parked somewhere

in back streets of my memory

of different makes and different years

some comfortable, some rusting yet still faithful

joining processions of misplaced cars

waiting to be towed away, forgotten

dream cars of mine, bewildered now and lost

 

They’re all drifting away now, swirling like

leaves all dancing round and round then

rushing down a drain bumping each other—

whirling metal doors their windows breaking up

abandoned vehicles coming apart

frames, roofs, exhaust pipes, wheels

light fixtures, radios wailing tunes from long ago

all swirling rushing downwards towards

the waiting ocean depths