The Sound Of The Gong Goes 'Gone' Poem by BLT REI

In the surburbanned cavorting of my dirty knee youth...
the smells anchored me in
orange slices
clean cut grass
and asphalt

the sights of forever blue skies
of the deep end swimming pool
standing 20feet above with
the girl below

to be simple: a hero, a rockstar, a sports star, the dynamic battle with Satan for the sake of the girl.

For the price of gum,
friendship came easy.

It was bug hunting in snake and mossy canals,
It was Atari playing in friends' basements
and dirty cable at 2am. my first breast shot.

It was empty lots of BMX racing where our dreams lived and died,
dirt jumps from loved lost objects-abandoned.
(we put a context)

My friendships were celebrated in those days.

It was throwing eggs in the glee of our juvenile doom.
It was coca cola classic binges in garages and kitchens.
It was racing the sun home to find dinner cold but warm.
It was confiding to another in a hiccup.

Oh how those forever blue sky days.
They were long and now

...they are subtly redolent in my tempered adultness
The bountiful heart of boys finding the expansive in a cul de sac
a block from home.

My friendships, today, in cusped greyness
can be found in a menu, an electronic one, where I am disturbed from my doldrums via electronic notifications

I wake with the smells farther and farther away. A physical distance I am no longer to bridge. Only hoping as I trudge on through this land of rock that my Ipod will give me one last hour.

I risk the daylight and construct melancholic rustic buildings that shade me endlessly from the forever blue skies of my youth.