I've been looking for this poem online and trying to remember the words and author so I could look it up. I found it in an old journal and need to keep it, so I'm sharing it with you. Thanks to Jeff Blackman for introducing it to me in the first place on his old LiveJournal!
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Love 20¢ The
First Quarter Mile
All right. I may have lied to you and about
you, and made a few
pronouncements
a bit too sweeping, perhaps, and possibly forgotten
to tag the
bases here or there,
And damned
your extravagance, and maligned your tastes, and libeled
your
relatives, and slandered a few of your friends,
O.K.,
Nevertheless,
come back.
Come home. I
will agree to forget the statements that you issued so
copiously to
the neighbors and the press,
And you will
forget that figment of your imagination, the blonde from Detroit;
I will agree
that your lady friend who lives above us is not crazy, bats,
nutty as
they come, but on the contrary rather bright,
And you will
concede that poor old Steinberg is neither a drunk, nor
a swindler,
but simply a guy, on the eccentric side, trying to get along.
(Are you
listening, you bitch, and have you got this straight?)
Because I
forgive you, yes, for everything.
I forgive
you for being beautiful and generous and wise,
I forgive
you, to put it simply, for being alive, and pardon you, in short, for being
you.
Because
tonight you are in my hair and eyes,
And every
street light that our taxi passes shows me you again, still you,
And because
tonight all other nights are black, all other hours are cold
and far
away, and now, this minute, the stars are very near and bright.
Come back.
We will have a celebration to end all celebrations.
We will
invite the undertaker who lives beneath us, and a couple of
boys from
the office, and some other friends.
And
Steinberg, who is off the wagon, and that insane woman who lives
upstairs,
and a few reporters, if anything should break.
- Kenneth Fearing
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