Saturday, March 12, 2011

Crossroads




Many years ago when I left University, my tutor fixed me up with a job on a newspaper in Philadelphia. Didn't go. Wonder what it would have been like?




All in All I’d Rather



When there’s traffic in my mind,
I end up in Philadelphia,
strolling in the Avenue of the Arts
with a well groomed girl,
or punching the air like Rocky
on the steps of the Rodin Museum
at the sight of another by line
from Scoop McMillan.
As I eat hoagies in the
unusually mild weather this Fall,
I watch leaves slowly drift to sea.
At this point I’m interrupted by a bum.
What is a hoagie? he asks.
And what’s it like to be on the edge
of a humid subtropical zone?
He’s drunk again, and on Wikipedia,
and soon he’ll show me, irresistibly,
pictures of his home town.

5 comments:

McGuire said...

Why didn't you take that opportunity, Shug?

Good poem, seems to be a few characters, the narrator, Scoop MacMillian, The Bum, and the well groomed girl. Apart from the girl all three seem to be extensions of your self. Or did I read too much into that?

Curious to know why you didn't go for the job!

puffincounter said...

funny, like it

puffincounter said...

i meant amusing, but not in a patronising way. Asked Jane about the fitba yet?

Hugh McMillan said...

Aye they're a me, Colin. Don't know why- cowardice, mostly. Can't help wondering what would have happenede.

Sandy's witterings said...

You land in blogs from funny old angles. Google chucked me in here half way through, sometime when you were back in 2009, while trying to surf up a Norman MacCaig poem. Found yours instead - nice poem (my old english teacher will be turning over in his grave - Nice!!, he hated the word)
Surprised at how many blogs turn up from the D&G region.