soft grumbles

Members in my poetry group in writersvillage take turn in giving assignments by way of prompts or challenges. This week is Marylynn's turn. She asked us to take an old photograph and create a poem out of it.

If you have been to my other blog, I posted an old picture of mine there, playing the guitar and sporting long hair. I don't have too many old pictures. My family seems not to be keen on keeping them like most Filipino families do. So, i used this picture again and came up with this poem. This is partly fact and partly fiction. Some parts used exaggerations for dramatic effect. here it is:

the awakening

those were happy times
when everything was new
and all was mine to discover.

all I did was strum my guitar
figuring out chords to songs all day,
groom my long, thick hair or
watch the latest movie,
play hooky and miss chemistry.

tag along with friends,
party all night long.
shoot a ball to the hoop or
gamble my money in billiard halls.
those were such happy times!

Learned to puff a cig
intoxicated by 6
trying not to breathe as I pass
by my mom, my dad or the dog
smoke weed or pop a pill
everything was new

life is like the seasons
coming back from where it goes
until I discovered, spring has to stop
coming back, too. It will stop
when it doesn't matter anymore,
it will cease the day one stops to breathe

too late to have discovered that
now that it's almost the time in life
for spring to cease to exist.

rolly