From June 2003 to August 2015

“Slow” can describe most of what I heard between the years 2003 and 2005—
when Motown greeted my ears all the time outside the Blockbuster store
but I didn’t know better than to shut my ears away
from the old-fashioned classics. So, perhaps the word
is more apt to describe me, for that was how I reacted to Stevie Wonder,
The Temptations, Jackson 5, Rick James and Boyz II Men
all the way until the age of thirteen.
During those restless years, when all I could see from the
balcony of my apartment were lonesome, abandoned streets of languor
and swears of ebbing repugnance that runs slowly to the rental
down on the street, the Blockbuster was as lively as the supermarket
that was always overran by grandmothers’ biological instincts
to buy the cheapest (—always at the earliest time of day),
or as vivacious as the changes happening to Woody, or Andy,
or the Slingy dog, or the potato couple with alien kids
(and how they got there I can’t quite remember).
And, I did know that the black, oblong VHS that I used to see
lying around on my desk was a promise of routine:
I’ve always remembered it had to be returned before the next coming third
(or some other day I can’t quite recall),
so I’d watch the rentals again, and again, until I can recall
what a folly the characters were—but what does it matter, anyways—
I still remember how Woody’s shoes are cleaned by
an oddly-shaped, senile repairman and his circumspect finger dances,
or simple gyrations of the cleaning cloth that erase all the marks on his shoe,
that grabs my attention rather than desires for good plot,
that ultimately made me remember that I’m about to head off to college,
regardless of how much they hadn’t change—for they are toys.
These days Motown’s getting a little too old, and VHS has gone for good.
Blockbuster’s gone, too, and the market silenced. Most of the elderlies are gone.
At once, I wonder how the streets are spick-and-span
and how my room is too overwrought in comparison—
and why our roles have reversed.
In an instant here is some bewilderment in my eyes, I guess,
as Andy’s graduating from college and, perhaps, throwing away the toys again.
And I know all these monstrosities that are happening under my watch
(though each will eventually bloom an intriguing outcome)
will still fascinate me in the years even when the fabulous voices in music
are gone for good, or even when life picks up its allegro later on—
because when the abstraction of time starts to cut me,
piece by piece, by its knife all the way until I die—
the only problem I have left is not enjoying enough of VHS
or other old-school things, and not trying enough of new things
until I wither for good; before I return to the good, old, dirty earth,
singing for one last time, When you believe in things /
That you don't understand / Then you suffer / Superstition isn't the way — ba-bay