Four Old Poems

Tom Coombe
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read

I’m about to move out of the apartment where I’ve lived for more than 17 years, and that means I’ve been unearthing a lot of stuff I’d forgotten.

Sometimes it’s good (old photos, letters from friends) and sometimes it’s not so good (why do I own TWO collections of Dennis Miller’s Rants?).

I also came across a bunch of old stuff I’d written, including some regrettable attempts at crime fiction, and a few poems.

I don’t write poetry as much as I used to, and was surprised to find that a few of them were…well, not painful to read.

This one is the newest, written at the start of 2002 soon after I’d met my girlfriend.

Outer Banks, New Year’s Eve

The sand here is like snow

I sink and I stumble

walking along the shore,

three drunk girls fall out the back door of a hotel

I see their shadows move away like cartoon devils.

The moon is round and white,

the flashlight I use

to find you here on the beach.

This one was written in the spring of 2000. I’d been single for more than a year at that point, and was 23 and in the middle of a “Girls never date nice guys like me” phase. It’s not about anyone specific, just me grumbling about cute young women dating guys who would likely go on to vote for Trump 18 years later…not that it excuses my “nice guy” attitude.

How I Came to Join a Gym

Outside the house the squirrels, all limber and lithe,

laugh at your gut and your sunken chest.

They know you lost your girl to the guy with the big truck,

who rode roughshod down the road,

with titanic tires painted team, and

an engine that shook the windows.

You could see him thinking “‘The Blue Beast,’ yeah, that’s cool,”

as he stenciled the letters on the side.

Not sure about the story about this one — also from 2000 or so — other than wherever I’ve lived, I’ve had to deal with birds waking me up at dawn.

Awake and Sing

In the grey light, I lay in bed,

listening to the birds, perched in their branches,

whistling, like a man too chipper to be at work.

I’m awake and my leg’s sleeping,

and I don’t have the strength

to hobble to the kitchen in my underwear,

grab some pots and pans,

and bang them together out the window,

adding percussion to the woodwinds.

When I was a teenager, we lived in a row house. Our elderly next door neighbor would lean over our porch railing and knock on our window and summon my brother and I to go to the store to her and get her cigarettes. The smell inside her home always stayed with me, enough to write this.

GPC Lights

The menthol smoke smothers other smells,

kerosene heaters, K-Mart hairspray

Store-brand pasta sauce.

Her hair is in curlers,

and the sun slowly sinking over the hill,

shades the make up

caked on her face.

Tom Coombe

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It's not heavy, it's awkward.