digging you in the early seventies and later

digging you in the early seventies and later

 

 

 

we lay upon the ego of youth

our love would never cease to amaze

even us,

your newly blond escape from red

my surprise that your touch felt the same

 

and the walks in the fall between high rises

holding hands in class with poets we admired

the kinship of words, shades of bell bottom tans

scorching prayers at night

when professors slept on tomorrow's lectures...

 

you were the perfect grifter

and i the eligible prey

you had that flared look i couldn't resist

and i didn't care your intentions

wore you like a favorite flannel shirt

 

with button down yearning

and when the amazement died

the surprise surprised itself

and my heart became an instant relic

 

something to be dug up on site

years later in my dreams.

 

 

 

 

erin-cilberto

2/1/19

Reviews

[Ted Kniffen]

Those lovely days of youth, when the worst problem we had was who is that girl and why does she like me?
Oh yeah, and school...let's guess which took priority. Bell bottoms...checked shirts and long hair...we all kinda looked like CCR...and then dancing to 11 minutes of I heard it through the grapevine.
There was always that one girl who could take us for everything we had...and we gave it willingly.

A good one, j.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

yes, those days....thank you for your words and sharing the memories, Ted,
j.

[Lyn Anderson]

Wistful and longing. It's nicer to look back on some things.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

yes, it is...thank you, Lyn...
and we remember them as we will...

[Mark Mendoza]

"..blonde escape from red" stuck out to me. Personal and beautiful. This poem feels as if we are reading a endearing letter to a lovely spirit. Thank you.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your words, Mark,
j.

[Fran Marie]

You take the reader there to a different place and time
loving this trip back to the seventies ..how sweet the memories

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, Fran Marie.
j.

[h d e rushin]

Chet Baker use to sing "I Fall In Love Too Easily". If you try to tell someone about 70's inspiration we begin by explaining the efficacy of tenderness. Poetry, still evokes the picture of a world showered with tenderness and the effuse of expression. that's why Frank Ohara said that "one poem is never enough". He didn't mean that one poem on a certain subject was never enough....He meant that the power to communicate (the essentialized intellectual construct) to be in love, to hold the hand, was the ultimate quality of freedom . I too, wish out loud, for the old days my friend...great poem...dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind words, dana....and yes, Frank O'Hara wrote in bunches...they poured out of him...and were so so good.

[kentuck14]

J.
Isn't memory a gorgeous thing!? My new wife was finishing up her nurses training at CPH in '74, and I would come down weekends from PA and we would walk the streets of NY together. Although a country gal she learned the subway system really fast. Yeah, bell bottoms and flannel shirts . . . Loved those last two stanzas . . . a great ending!
Tom

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, Tom...i miss those days....many of us from that era do...
appreciate you sharing your experience.
j.

[kentuck14]

you bet! Its what an aging man does!

[Lorry]

Well for starters, this obeys the first two riles of poetry club, never to talk about poetry club, and to have a title that readers just need to click on.
Then you go and bring eight thousand and two memories flooding back, from the new hairstyle that you weren't sure about, until you realised it was like having two girlfriends, the memory of the first and the shiny new one too. And how our mind does wander to those what ifs, the never ageing beauty they will always hold in our memories, that never tarnish. That is probably why I avoid mirrors, they show the reality of me, where memories never grow old.
Really love how in my head I head a slight sigh at the end. Or was that me? :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your words, and the smile, Lorry.
j.

[Ana Papaya]

Some people make such an impression that they stay ingrained forever, locked in the drawer of loves lost and might have beens. Enjoyed.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your words,Ana,
j.

[Annette Pisano-Higley]

Jacob, you take us back to a time when we were fearless, unstoppable, impassioned- and ‘flared’! “We lay upon the ego of youth”-great line- and we did. You skillfully use fashion to clothe and tell your romantic tale. Everything was laid on the table of love and our hearts were as free as our pant legs were wide. Your last two verses deeply mourn the wreckage of a love imploded by reality. Great language, metaphor use and nostalgic imagery. Thanks for the magic carpet ride back my friend.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind review, Annette,
j.

[Dave]

All too well I know whereof you speak. To say more, would reveal too much.
Thank you for the write.

Take care - Dave

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for relating, Dave...
j.