Ghosts
Posted by Rob Kistner | Filed under art, Free Verse, memories, Poetry, sensuality
“Summer Night” by Albert Bloch, 1913
•
trim taut tan legs
carry firm eager bodies
perfumed and cologne’d
‘round and ‘cross the dance floor
young groping lust
shadowed near the band shell
aglow in halo’d incandescence
throbbing with the big beat
of eternal rock & roll
beneath a high starry sky
clear as the naïve dreams
as humid as the shared embraces
hot as the stolen kisses
forever as the promised love
of sizzling teenage midnight
ghosts of my youth
recalled from long ago
• • •
rob kistner © 2012
September 3rd, 2012 at 1:55 pm
I think I know that place Rob…my poem was a “flashback” also….City Lights and SF …thanks for this Rob..happy trails to you and familuy
September 3rd, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Rob, for all the best reasons … this made me cry.
September 4th, 2012 at 3:30 am
ah but those nights are so fun to remember arent they…smiles…i may miss them sometimes but mostly they fuel my now…
September 4th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Oh, yes, Robb. I remember those times too. They were only yesterday, weren’t they? I just love the memory of ‘throbbing with the big beat of eternal rock and roll.’ And the closer to the band the better! You captured the feelings of the time SO well.
September 4th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Sometimes it’s good when our lost ghosts return! Your vivid words, and shadowed near the band shell, all bring back memories of my own! Nicely done!
September 4th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
those sound like nice ghosts to revisit from here… Your lovely write brings the past to the present.
September 4th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Delicious memories…
September 4th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
I wonder if the drugs back then, like mushroom and grass, you know, naturally occuring substances , or other sentient beings with which we share the planet , depending if you share Tim learies point of view , made people somehow more alive and interesting , compared to the scientifically symthesized machine drugs of today, wheich seem to be churning out ever increasing numbers of machine people, and their music and art only replicates that which has gone before, a dearth of creativity . ?
September 5th, 2012 at 12:08 am
i have learned to indulge my ghosts….face them head on….they now feel like buddies…:)
September 5th, 2012 at 2:01 am
Perhaps Kutamun, but I was reaching back to a time of deeper innocence, when a taste of secreted beer was as exotic as it got, the girls wrapped their ‘steadies’ class rings in angora so they would fit, and fogged windows at the ‘passion pit’ was a testament to teenage lust…
September 5th, 2012 at 8:42 am
Rob, as i was reading this I was thinking of how long it has been since I had such feelings…. Frankly, can barely remember them. Then I came upon your last stanza… OMG! Age creeps up on us and those memories are indeed important. You remember them well….
September 5th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
The young never realise – and would probably be shocked, even dismayed if they did – how three-dimensionally vivid are the carnal memories of their elders!
September 5th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Dick, John Allen — these memories crept boldly out of the fog of time as I was reading about the Broadway play “Jersey Boys”, which inspired me to go online to seek out and listen to some of the ‘oldies’ from the Four Seasons, which brought me to the top 100 tunes from 1963. I started selecting and sampling a number of these, which carried me right back to that summer of my 16th year, which opened the flood gates of memories… it is amazing what music unlocks…
September 5th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
This is gorgeous; reads almost like a dream…
September 6th, 2012 at 10:48 am
I guess we all have ghosts from our youth….love this Rob!
September 7th, 2012 at 12:25 am
With regard to my writing this, part of my inspiration came from a wonderful novel by Joseph Heller entitled “The Dog Stars”. The remainder of the inspiration came from me sampling the top 100 hits of 1963, which was the soundtrack for the summer of my 16th year, the summer of my ’57 Chevy Bel Aire. Looking back at my early years, those years we’re waiting for our lives to begin, I think now that maybe true sweetness, that tender pure love, can happen only then. I don’t know why that feels true, perhaps it’s because we are so innocent and so unsure, we’re tentative and waiting, wondering. It’s like innocent love needs that much room, that much space to expand. The not knowing anything really for certain, but the hoping, the aching transience: the love does not feel as though it can possibly be real, not really, and so we let it alone, let it unfold lightly – and it does, fully. Those are the times it truly can fly, and carry us with it…
September 9th, 2012 at 6:37 am
Beautiful imagery and alliteration of T words and S words. This kind of has the beat of an old bluesy tune.
Truly enjoyed reading this.