Nostalgia
Have you ever missed the way things were?
“how sad and bad and mad it was - but then, how it was sweet.”
— Robert Browning
Milkman got glass bottles,
making the milk box clink
Out on the stoop.
Wakes me in a blink.
I want dinner,
so I’m going to the butcher.
Getting me a roast,
for the slow-cooker.
8-track playing,
speakers in the trunk.
Lynard Skynard
and all that junk.
This show sucks,
someone change the channel.
Get up yourself
(wish we had cable).
Mama says I need
to be home for dinner.
I make it just in time,
With my new shiner.
Having a good time
drinking soda pop,
Spinning bottle caps
and making one hop.
I need to get that coffee,
I can almost reach.
“Can you hang on?
The cord won’t stretch.”
Recommended
Driving in my car,
wondering why
they bother to put
seat-belts inside.
I wonder how my
pictures look.
In two weeks
I’ll find out
Gotta call my friend,
but I hate their number.
3 freaking zero’s means
dialing takes forever.
A dial telephone
Must be midnight.
Nothing's on the tube.
Just that color bar
And the white noise.
Kitchen sink’s stopped up,
need to find a plumber.
Looking through the phone book
to get me a number.
Can you stop home?
Gotta make a call.
There is no public phone
in sight at all.
I wonder how my
pictures look.
In two weeks
I’ll find out.
“Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn't what it used to be?”
— Jasper Fforde in “First Among Sequels”
© 2020 Kari Poulsen
