Cold and alone With my hands in my pockets I play kick the can When something comes out the end Its a quarter With my new luck in my hand I walk to the store to spend it On my way I tripped And it flipped And rolled right into a street drain I got on my hands and knees To see what I could see When there laid a new used watch Just waiting for me I strapped my new watch Around my wrist When I noticed The watch did not tick I took that watch Threw it in a tree And a ripe juicy pear Fell down for me The moral of the story is easy to see Sometimes things are what they seem This poem was inspired by a couple of 20 year old kids. I went to a monthly poetry reading tonight and it was running real, real long. A couple of times I thought about just getting up to leave but I hung on until I finally got to read. I thought my reading went pretty good but the whole long night really had me thinking this was the worst time I ever had at a poetry reading. Anyway when I got up to leave I heard a kid say excuse me, excuse me sir. I turned around and there was two young men standing there wanting to talk to me. The one ask me about the second poem I read, he wanted to know if he could read it again he liked it so much. ( it was the poem Delilah) I told him he could have it if he wanted and I gave him the piece of paper with the poem on it. Then I went to the bathroom and then up the stairs and out to my car when I heard the kids again. Excuse me sir they said. When I turned around they were running across the parking lot to talk to me. They wanted to ask me a few questions about my writing and then they ask me if I came every month. I told them yes. They said they would try and come again because the one was just starting to write and my work really inspired him. It made me feel like a million bucks. With just a few kind words this young man turned my worst poetry reading into my best poetry reading. Sometimes things are not what they seem