Ok you up there, can we go home now?

A Birthday Poem

This day you’re turning fifty four,

Another year less, to know you more.

I am not you. I sometimes think that I recall,

The way it was, when I was you, just like we all

Say we were Cleopatra in another life.

Perhaps I made it up.

If I remembered, then couldn’t I control

The million flashing buttons on your soul?

I can’t, and so, you still frustrate

My feeble efforts to manipulate!

I can’t find where the pedals are,

I swear I’ll never get to drive your crazy car!

 

Cruising on empty, driving up all those wrong way streets

That you’re convinced are right, they feel so sweet,

Your GPS in Germany, for all I know!

You sit there stalled, the chicks still stop and stare,

That’s one amazing pimped up ride that you’ve got there.

And then, you are not me. But would you want to be?

To feel life with such intensity,

Just for a moment, to burn with happiness, to explode

Your tank so full of life you feel you own the road,

And yet, nowhere to go, nowhere to flow but into you,

And can I?

In any case, the next moment, it’s all gone,

And I’m back down where I belong.

What are we learning, through this love and hate?

If we’re in school, when do we graduate?

Only change will do it, only when we comprehend

The pattern, will this struggle end.

We learn painfully, by rote and by ruler

It’s meant to hurt.

And yes you’re fifty four, and I am forty eight

And yes, our hearts are sore, and yes, it’s kind of late,

But there’s still time to work it out, to find the key.

Hey you, yes you up there, we’ll say – that’s you and me.

You can stop teaching us these bitter truths

We never asked for nor wanted.

We get it now.