Robert Ludden Poet Free verse

The Road Behind

The years fold into one another
like that old collapsible cup
I used to take on picnics;
memories in sepia and disappearing,
resistant, resurrected only by
a word, a sign, a sound.

It is a vaporous thing to cherish;
the wonder of it, not in its nostalgia,
rather in its why.
Old images grow ragged on their edges.
The simple times were not the best,
and fine sandpaper
is the modifier of choice.

I thought of lemonade at four o'clock,
popcorn by the radio
and Stoopspeakle nagling*
on a Sunday afternoon. 

Then it is that I remember
turning  up the volume
just to drown, I think,
my parents' argument.
              ~
*Col. Stoopnagle was a radio comedian
back in the early 40's,  whose shtick 
was speaking in spoonerisms

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