Jonathan Travelstead

USA

cyberalien82@hotmail.com
Broken Toys
All you see is the broken toys.
Tin cars with broken wheels,
Paint peeling like rehearsed goodbyes
I have heard too many times
And wish no more.

Wind them up and watch
As they march, tracking circles in the floor,
Their forced squeaks as of abondonment,
Contagiously they torture both it and I.
I can no longer bear to witness.

Fallen and rattled, limp now.
A Doll's arm broken at the joint,
A loved kitten lay in the corner,
Dead as the children that played with them.
They reside as memories in the young bones,
Trinkets on the baby's final bed.

Even the children's children
Aren't old enough to forget the toys.
Their own blocks filled the haze, passed days
Young heads grown old are still filled
With the tin soldiers' cries,
And the toys are not forgotten,
But disremembered.

Now the soldier's key fits unevenly,
Mismatched to his plastic back,
And the rubber tires fit loosely
In the ruts of our silicon track.
This world isn't made for angels,
Nor was it, or will be.
Utopia has relocated out of our reach,
But within those of the simple.
We were found there and will again.

The toys of old could not cry for the rust,
But we are the toys of today,
And know not why we weep.
As our children lie snugglind their blankies
I will shed a tear in the dark
Where I am not stainless, but porcelain.

© All Copyright, 8/14/99, Jonathan Travelstead.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.