The death of dreams.

I sit and talk with men, women and children
but my mind, is always in a far off place.
I once drank black tea under Orion's Belt 
with Nubian's, slowly sailing on a felucca
down the river Nile,
though my feet yearned for well trodden summer
paths of the Pennines in the English countryside.

I sit with men and they talk about their football team
that hasn't won a championship in decades,
their cars that they clean every Saturday morning, 
their wives who are 20 pounds heavier,
fishing in the Gulf of Mexico,
hunting deer in the Fall,
their miserable jobs, 
their idiot bosses, 
the price of gas, 
the price of beer,
these men were once determined and optimistic 
about their futures and how they were going
to change the world,
now, they shave once week, have paunch bellies 
and have a frustrated idealism. 
I sit and listen, make grunting sounds and 
agreeable noises,
while thinking of a leisurely saunter I once had
thru a tulip market in Amsterdam,
as I gazed upon a myriad of colors, reds, oranges,
yellows, greens, whites and pinks, as my
mind recalled a double rainbow I stood under
somewhere in southern Ireland. 

I sit with women and they talk about their
lazy and bad tempered husbands,
their daily routine and servitude to their children,
their friends who are hypocrites and bitches,
their favorite reality T.V. show,
a movie star that makes them fantasize,
what groceries they have just bought,
what needs fixing around the house,
how their children are the best a mother
could ever hope for,
that their husbands are always tired,
and are 50 pounds heavier,
or watching the game or drinking beer
with their friends in the back yard,
and how much cleaning they do,
and how they dread seeing a grey hair,
with glistening eyes they fondly recall old
love letters fading from their hearts,
and voices quiver of remembered carefree
days, before children and wedded bliss.  
I sit and listen, make consoling and agreeable noises,
while thinking of a romantic walk I once had 
beside the River Seine in Paris, carrying a glass
of Beaujolais with a Sri Lankan beauty, 
who had black hair flowing down her back.

I sit and talk with the children of these men
and women, and their simplicity and imagination
fills my heart with joy.
They tell me they want to be astronauts, firefighters,
nurses, doctors, police officers and soldiers,
but some say they want to be like their 
mommy and daddy......and I bow my head and cry.