In the course of rifling through old notebooks I came across this poem written ten years ago while driving to work at REI in Roseville, Minnesota, apparently with my focus on word selection instead of, um, looking for stop signs. I warn you, this is early work, and I reprint it with the twinge of anyone who re-reads their perhaps overly earnest collegiate scribblings. It made me smile nonetheless.
$74 Poem
by Jack Golightly
11.15.98
The trees are sleepily dropping their leaves
while the houses rest
and the cars dream in the driveways
I am watching the sun yawn
as I, the nocturne, harmonize with
its tired little sunbeams that
slouch into the cold gray morning
the people fight them
by turning off the alarm and
postponing life, happy to
be unconsious at 7:55 AM on a
cold Saturday morning
-except me,
and the man whose cold
dreariness matches the day as
he hands me a written reminder
from the Roseville Police
to not compose poetry while driving
(thus making this the most expensive
poem I have ever written)