POEM — Beginnings

They got so high

They couldn’t remember what they were doing.

 

He was driving a car

Or potting a plant or explaining a theorem,

 

Or maybe all of that at once.

Along for the ride, she had no idea

 

What he was going on about.

She settled for the sound of his voice

 

And watching the late summer sun

Reflecting off the dashboard.

 

She was never very good with plot lines.

At this point neither was he.

 

So, they parked someplace quiet

Or they found a shady tree

 

Or they climbed the stairs to her apartment

And sat out on her balcony.

 

 

He gazed into her eyes,

While she, nervous as a bird,

 

Flitted about fumbling some cassette

Or thumbing through an art book.

 

They weren’t lovers, at least not yet.

He was still way too immature

 

And she was still seeing old what’s-his-name.

But time would pass,

 

Time the invincible,

The way it always did,

 

And just like everybody else

They would laugh and reunite and die.

 

*

Remington Murphy received his B.A. in 1980, and his M.A. in 1983, both in English from Temple University, where you can’t major in English anymore. In the 80’s he edited the Magic Bullet Science Fiction Anthology, then in the late 80’s/early 90’s he ran R.E.M. Press, which gave him an opportunity to publish some fine poets he met in graduate school, such as Sylan Esh and Michael Graves. In 1990 he published his own poetry chapbook, “Courting the Black Widow,” and then in 1993 he had a full length book of poems published, “Fear of Vision” (Arkada-Arch, New York). He has also published a collection of masques (e.g. short dramatic pieces written in verse), “Boogaloo” (Mellen Poetry Press, 2004).