The Pedestrian and Other Poems Read online

  and the laptop computer I saved

  three paychecks for, filled with poems

  and stories I wrote in my spare time

  from slaving at that menial job I have

  that barely pays the bills

  and keeps food in my refrigerator.

  I would've loved to read him

  a few of my poems. They would've

  really knocked his socks off.

  And I would've told him

  of my dream of being a famous poet,

  like my idols, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski,

  Amiri Baraka, T. S. Eliot, Billy Collins,

  of being published,

  of Garrison Keillor reading

  one of my poems on his radio show,

  and of one day

  not-so-many years in the future,

  sitting on a stage in an auditorium

  of an Ivy-league university,

  one that working class parents

  dream of sending their kids to

  if they could afford it,

  next to all my poetry idols

  reading their work,

  and of Billy Collins patting me

  on the shoulder like a baseball coach

  before a player goes up to bat,

  saying to me, smiling,

  "You're up, kid."

  No, this man on the podium

  in his cheap suit and tie

  doesn't know me. He doesn't

  know me at all.

  He doesn't speak for me.

  He speaks for the people who are

  so used to hearing people like him speak

  that they forgot how to speak for themselves,

  or how to think,

  or the most important trait

  of human existence,

  how to dream.

  THE LITTLE ONE

  The little one and I

  sit together on the couch,

  engrossed in the pages

  of the latest Thomas the Train

  adventure thriller.

  At the precise moment

  where our hero must latch onto

  Percy's derailed car

  in a blinding storm, ready to

  risk it all to rescue his dear friend

  from a sinking demise

  in the mud,

  the little one rips the book

  from my hands, throws it on the floor,

  squats and begins turning

  the pages himself.

  And I can't help but wonder,

  could he be an impatient learner,

  or a newborn seeker

  of a truth not yet realized.

  Only time will tell.

  ELEGY FOR A STAR

  for Heath Ledger

  I saw a star go out last night.

  It used to be one of the brightest

  in the heavens. But it's brilliant light

  grew dimmer with each passing night

  until it was no more.

  I wonder what made that star

  go out. They're supposed to last longer

  than the people who gaze upon them.

  But not this star.

  Maybe it was sad.

  Maybe it was lonely.

  Maybe we didn't give it enough love.

  Maybe stars are like flowers

  in the sun, their very lives

  dependent upon the love and care

  we give them.

  I feel responsible.

  ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT

  Another Saturday night alone

  in my apartment,

  dressed in my after-shower costume

  of T-shirt and sweat pants,

  sitting on my couch

  pigging out on triscuits,

  another classic movie on PBS,

  pad and pen on my coffee table

  with scribblings leading my thoughts

  to another new poem,

  next to the latest rejection slip

  from Poetry magazine

  telling me in the kindest language

  not to give up my day job,

  while out there

  in the bars and clubs of

  the world, my friends

  are having the time of their lives,

  drinking, listening to music,

  enjoying each other's

  good company.

  "You're gonna die alone,"

  they warn me.

  "A miserable old bard

  with no one to bury you."

  "Maybe so," I reply.

  "But what have you written lately?"

  FEARING TOMORROW

  Tomorrow is

  just around the corner.

  And for the first time in my life

  I'm afraid of what's coming.

  I'm afraid like the ordinary man

  in old Israel was afraid

  when a young rabbi named Jesus

  came along starting all that trouble.

  I'm afraid like the ordinary man

  in South Carolina was afraid

  when it seceded from the Union

  and kindled the fires

  of the Civil War.

  I'm afraid like the ordinary men

  in old Russia, old China and old Cuba

  were afraid when their neighbors

  chose communism to be their savior.

  I'm afraid like the ordinary man

  was afraid forty years ago,

  when a black minister named Martin

  and a white yankee named Bobby

  knocked down the walls between us

  with a sledgehammer, preaching

  justice and equality for all.

  I'm the next ordinary man

  who's afraid.

  I'm afraid of the hopes and dreams

  of so many becoming

  a nightmare for us all.

  I'm afraid of my brothers, my sisters

  and my friends becoming my enemies

  for having a different point of view.

  I'm afraid of having the change

  force-fed down my throat

  when I need time to swallow it.

  I don't think people are ready

  for tomorrow yet.

  Least of all me.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Some of these poems appeared in the following magazines: Ceremony, A Journal of Poetry and Other Arts, Pablo Lennis, and WritingRaw.com.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  George I. Anderson lives in southern New Jersey. The Pedestrian is his first book of poems.