Ode to Lovers Lost and Unknown

I haven't felt much like writing any parodies or satires lately, but I did scratch out a rough poem this evening. It's about a special building on the beach near where I grew up, that was torn down when I was in Junior High. If you'd like to know more about the Luminia, check out this site: http://www.wrightsville.com/luminia_days_at_wrightsville_beach.htm or for more pictures and history:
http://www.wbmuseum.com/lumina_daze_2005.htm

Tomorrow I'm off for the Big Two-hearted River (remember Hemingway's Short Stories?), for some camping, canoeing and fishing on what's suppose to be one of the top ten trout streams in the country. Here's the poem:


Ode to Lovers Lost and Unknown

I never had a chance to dance in the upstairs ballroom at the Luminia
it’s walls open to the air to catch the evening breeze blowing from offshore
cooling the evening’s guest as they did the Jitterbug and Charleston
under the bright lights guiding ship captain who sailed the coastline
until 1942, when the threat of German U-boats extinguished the light.

And I never had a chance to lay in the sand on the beach
and to watch silent movies projected on a screen
Out beyond the breakers, which provided a constant rhythm,
for the antics of Mr. Fields and company
until the screen, obsolete with the new talking shows, was flatted in a nor'easter.

And I never had a chance to ride the electric trolley
that carried folks the ten miles from Wilmington to the beach.
What would have been like, late at night under live oaks haunted with Spanish moss,
as the cars made their way passed the new bungalows on Wrightsville Avenue,
the summer air scented with honeysuckle, the sky filled with lightning bugs and Pisces meteors?

Of course, I got to shoot pool, a quarter a game
in the shell of a building once called the Luminia
and to shower underneath, rinsing by body in brackish water,
unaware of the splendor long past in the rotting building
that waited for the wrecking crew clearing for condos.

Time has passed me by
and I’ll never have a chance to dance with you at the Luminia,
to watch the light reflect in your eyes and the wind to blow your dress and toss your hair.
But if I’d had the chance, I’d pull you tight, my arm around your waist,
savoring the moment and licking salt from the nape of your neck.