November 11, 2024, Tuscaloosa By Jeff Weddle

Once, I was young

and spent my hours

in cheap bars or backyards,

throwing horseshoes, shooting pool,

sleeping on couches, usually broke,

and going on lunatic drives

across the country with great friends

who were at least as crazy as I was.

I fell in love with so many women,

fast and hard, mostly with no love returned,

and pined in my gut for everything I wanted,

but never had and couldn’t name.

I didn’t notice the years

piling up and my hair falling out

and the ungodly bloat

I got from the oceans of beer

and drive-through hamburgers

and all the other awful things

I did to myself.

Now, I am old with bad knees,

bad shoulders, fading eyes.

So many friends have fallen into the grave.

I am ancient, often sad,

with no roads calling me

but the one that takes me, every day,

from home to work and home again.

I wouldn’t know which way to turn

if they did.

 

 

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the Eudora Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry, including being named the first State of Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. His work has appeared in Albanian and Spanish translation. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.