Eighteen

Randomness at the end of a long week. Click away now if you're looking for something profound.

For the first time in 18 years, I woke up this morning NOT owning a car made by The Ford Motor Company. For all of you who are thinking Fix Or Repair Daily otherwise Found On Road Dead, let me state clearly: I know you have ample data to support your sneers, but my two Fords served me well for a total of 215,000 miles. Actually, my Tempo was much more reliable than my Focus, but both were more than adequate for me.

Got to thinking what else was different about me 18 years ago. Wasn't married yet, so it's hard to even consider that person I was back then me. I hadn't yet submitted anything for publication other than to my college litmag. As I look back at what I was writing then, there's generally about 2 lines in each "poem" that's still interesting to me. A couple of pieces still work as a whole, but what characterizes my work today is not evident in those poems. Indeed, the ones that work are the farthest departures from my style then and my style now - experiments that found something that worked.

That year did plant the seeds for work that is just sprouting recently, though. My relationship with my father changed - for a significant number of reasons - that year. Since his death a few years agoI've started to realize all the whens and whys of those changes. Some of these have work their way into some poems. Forgetting some of the subject matter was even more fictional then than it is in the poem, I could never have written this in 1990.

It would be interesting to have someone who doesn't know me well compare this to my early dreck and tell me what's changed, and if it's as much for the better as I think. But I'm not ready to share all the dreck yet. Maybe in 18 years.

{Sorry, this poem has been deleted}