Images & Words by Mark Alden
The thought I thought I’d lost
suddenly swam back to the surface
of my mind one night.
I shot out of bed,
groped for the light,
groped for a pen,
but before I could find one
it flit away again.
That slippery thought
I’ve yet to hook
into the net
of my nightstand notebook.
But each night I cast my line once more
into a dark sleepy pond, hoping to catch
whatever it is I’m fishing for.
The little yellow house on the hill,
I saw it once in a dream that felt so real,
though it’s a place I know I’ve never been.
And what if I never have that dream again?
Does such a place in the world exist
outside of my own head?
Somehow, I hope it does,
and I hope to find you
still paddling for shore
in that little blue canoe
when I get there.
What is night
but another burned-out day
clad in dancing shoes
and a sleek black party dress,
hair down, rife with life
and drunken laughter,
swaying gracelessly and uninhibited
to the floor pulsing beats.
Until at last, the music stops.
The bands and the DJs pack up.
The raucous voices gradually fade –
the laughter, always the last to die,
as it should be.
Then the streets become eerily quiet,
though not for very long
because another dawn is creeping
just beyond those darkest hours.
Soon, birds are stirring in the trees,
filling the air with songs
of a different nature
as the next party begins
and the last of the night creatures
crawl back into their caves.
Just an old shed is left to stand
against the slow invasion
of termites and weeds and time.
The house is gone,
and has been for years.
Once I drove past where it used to be
on my way to nowhere in particular
and nearly drowned
in a flash flood of memory.
We lived in the apartment upstairs
where the fire was said to have started.
Maybe arson.
Maybe a careless cigarette left burning.
Nobody knows.
We lived there when my children
were still children. In the mornings
I waved them off
from the end of the driveway,
giving good fortune little more
than a parting glance
as the school bus rolled away.
I remember the night my ex-wife called
to tell me about the fire,
how she and her mother stood
on the side of the road, watching
with tears in their eyes
as the flames consumed it all –
the place where we once ate and slept
and watched our kids grow.
Out in the middle of that wild field
my daughter spent hours
jumping on a trampoline.
My son shagged fly balls
on crisp spring nights,
balls I hit out to him
while practicing for Little League.
The woods out back must be full
of rotting baseballs.
A few days after the fire,
I pulled into the driveway
and stared at what remained.
Before leaving I snapped a few photos.
I can’t remember why.
Maybe as proof
that we were ever there at all,
how far we’ve drifted since,
innocence lost along the way.
Once while standing at the base
of a steep spiral staircase,
a fever dream stole my equilibrium –
the pinpoint of light above appearing
like the tiny aperture at the end
of a camera lens as my fluttering eyelids
attempted to bring it into focus.
Heights have never felt quite right,
yet that bright white eye
at the top of the ceiling
suddenly seemed more appealing
than I could’ve dreamed possible
at the moment of my ascent.
Damned if we do,
damned if we don’t.
There’s a dam in this river
where logs used to float
and jam up downstream,
a rusting reminder
of a once booming industry,
like the billowing smokestack
of the paper mill today,
tainting our blue skies
with toxic plumes of gray,
the air stinking like shit
whichever way the wind
decides to take it.
But the land
continues to give
and we continue
to live,
flippant of
the stern reality
that we are
(and always have been) at its mercy.
From where I sit
it doesn’t feel much like baseball,
but its opening anthems play
while the slushy remains
of a dark cold season
seep into storm drains.
This soaking rain, when will it ever end?
Meanwhile, in distant stadiums
hope has been born again.
Somewhere where the sun is mocking us,
people are basking in its warmth,
gathered in grandstands
in short-sleeves and caps,
cradling popcorn, pretzels,
hot dogs, and beer
while scratching the itch
that’s nagged them all winter long.
Finally, a thunder crack
in the glove, and it’s on…
That first white hot pitch!
As you approach the threshold
of letting go,
you hear the faintest of whispers
from somewhere in the back row
of your minds little theater
while the projection room above
reels out another cold memory
through the flickering, dusty light
onto the screen.
It’s a scene you’ve forced yourself
to sit through countless times before.
And like many old films,
there is a moral to this story.
You know it all too well and yet
this time when you hear that whisper
you choose to defy the safe logic
that has kept you planted here all your life.
You open your eyes, rise from your chair,
and step out of the dark
into the sharp white light of day.
If it wasn’t for that letter you wrote,
typewritten with a purple cat sticker
on the front of the envelope,
I might have lost hope
in small miracles, might have forgotten
the feeling of receiving something other
than sales flyers or bills.
Of course, you could’ve sent
a plain old email instead,
but that wouldn’t do
because it wouldn’t be you.
Then there was that poem you enclosed,
four sharp two line stanzas
about pain and grace and hope.
Daughter of mine, I love these lines.
Keep writing, keep sending letters,
keep fighting to make your corner
of the world just a little bit better.
This one’s for all the plastic cups
that have parted my lips,
the plastic forks I used to stab
the pasta salad with.
For all the plastic buds
I’ve jammed in my ears
just so I could hear
those countless playlists
that have sustained me
throughout the years.
For the little plastic card in my wallet.
What’s in yours?
Don’t leave home without it.
For the hordes of plastic bottles
inundating the oceans, decimating the fish.
Someday we will understand. Won’t we?
Why am I questioning this?
And how about a shout out
to all of the microplastics
collecting in my body
with no earthly right to be there,
but such is the price we pay
for the brief sweet privilege of being here.
Even the most terrible truth’s
aren’t so terrible at 6 A.M.
Your eyes squint open
to the little thumbnail moon
framed between two naked trees
outside your window
as a seam of pale orange light
is flaring out in the east
and your mind like the early sky
is a clean empty canvas,
untouched and untarnished
by the imminent eruption of memory.
What might I be doing today if I’d stopped,
just once, all those years ago
to glance back at my burning city?
Where would I have been yesterday?
Where would I be tomorrow?
Whose story would I be writing now?
Whose life might I be living?
Would I still be living at all?
I’m powerless to stop these questions
from sparking up and burning
through my mind,
even though I know they are each
as inconsequential as floating flakes of ash
or fine grains of salt
scattered on the wind.
Haunted Avenues 