Back in my old home town,
i passed an old haunt of mine;
went there most evenings
when i had nothing to do;
it was shuttered;
plywood covered the windows,
windows out of which i peered,
saw a ten-point buck
in the side yard one night
i parked in the weeds overtaking the lot
in the back and walked through knee-high grass
to the un-boarded main entrance;
peering in, i saw dust and cobwebs,
pieces of furniture strewn about,
the shuffleboard table gone;
i turned toward the road:
cars and pickups hurdling past
on the four-lane road
rather than the occasional pickup,
which back then, didn’t hurdle anywhere,
that passed on the two-lane road
when i lingered here;
a sign by the door
announced it would be soon torn down
to make way with a strip mall,
anchored by a convenience store,
including a cleaners, a franchised burger place,
a liquor store, a hair salon, and several more.
i returned to my car;
sitting there for a moment.

i realized that old haunt of mine
was a lot like me, a lot like me:
we were dilapidated, past our time,
lost in a world that passed us by;
i had a lot of dust on eighty years,
cobwebs of memories in my head,
not much more;
my world is filled with weeds,
not manicured lawns,
certainly not fake lawns;
i will be replaced by folks
glued to their phones,
buying the latest fad,
hurdling by in their electric automobiles,
ignoring the past.

that old haunt doesn’t fit in today:
it was too comfortable for today;
not much plastic, only a juke box
in the corner playing country called oldies;
i am comfortable but
certainly not plastic,
playing a lot of oldies,
waiting to be replaced by convenience.