! The Soundtrack To Our Life Poem by Michael Shepherd

...more than we or others ever realise, I reckon,
the music of our younger years
makes the soundtrack to our life -

there I am sitting beside the driver
and the speakers correction stunguns
in every corner of the car
are belting out pomp-rock in all its triumph
and I'm thinking christ if I'm deaf now
what will they be at my age,
and well-they-all-sound-the-same-to-me
and I see the guy growing visibly,
livin' the singer and the music and the song;
and I take that in and feel a stranger to the world
then ten, twenty years later
I see a brilliant TV ad
with that as background music
and it hits me in the stomach or between wet eyes
and I think christ I wish I could've written that, then, now...

but I'm marked too -
the hiss of the needle on the vinyl
as if it were the carrier wave
of the first ever message from a new planet;
then the saxophones,
new york new world new life
and the witty lyrics
slick and silky
sly and shady
and the last outatune bars
world weary but oh so sophisticated
before the final hissnclick...

the music of our younger years,
the soundtrack to our life.