Just The Way It Goes Poem by Paul Reed

The past is the dust
Settled in the grooves of records
Undisturbed, unplayed,
Stored safely away
As youth began to fade;

How I listened
In melancholic adolescence
As the black vinyl spun
Scratching and crackling
At a story just begun;

The needle of time unlocks
A faint, wistful voice
Soulful and reflected
On a nostalgic, lonely shore
Washed up and dejected;

Every note forlorn
An echo of glorious years
Sung in yesterday's limelight
To those who might listen
On some future night;

The ‘White Lady'
She heard Beck's call
Of silvery, slick notes, crowded
Arcing between the streetlights
On a foggy night enshrouded;

‘Everybody-Nobody'
That appealed to my sadness
And, in hollow love,
Flew to my teenage heart
Like a terrified dove;

And, at last we came
To the final solemn track
Which summed up all my woes
The needle gently lifted
But that's ‘Just The Way It Goes'.