The Go-Cart (A Minnesota Poem, 1959)
Here in front of Old Rice School (underneath arc lights) the boys (the Cayuga Street Gang) wait like candles on an alter- half lit.
We are bending over looking down while Mike and his go-cart ready the world for light.
None of us noticed it then, the boy, girls...
boozed, that twilight had sit: how funny, it was like a festival- a square rigged cart of steel, with a motor on its back, made us hold our breath, hoping our turn would come next, to ride and drive this mad-mouse.
And then your turn came-counting stopped, breathing regained- I mean, you were different now, you had the reins.
I didn't care all that much to drive and ride, that mad-mouse around and around, the school-but more so to be present, and feel the world in light.
No: 2387 (5-23-2008) Note: back in 1959, in St.
Paul, Minnesota, Mike E.
Siluk (my brother), had a go-cart, he was the talk of the neighborhood for that season, and perhaps well deserved.
He had everyone in envy, but he worked hard to acquire the only co-cart (with his paper route money), this side of the Mississippi I bet.
And Old Rice School, which was just up an old dirt alley from our home, was a great place to have a go-around runway for the go-cart.
It seems nowadays, go-carts are almost everywhere not anything special, perhaps times have changed, but 'the world in light' or setting the world for us in a spark of light, hasn't change at least in memory and in this poem I tried to recapture that moment-or perhaps better put, to recapture back that extraordinary feeling.
Yes indeed, those were special days.
Dedicated to Mike Siluk.
We are bending over looking down while Mike and his go-cart ready the world for light.
None of us noticed it then, the boy, girls...
boozed, that twilight had sit: how funny, it was like a festival- a square rigged cart of steel, with a motor on its back, made us hold our breath, hoping our turn would come next, to ride and drive this mad-mouse.
And then your turn came-counting stopped, breathing regained- I mean, you were different now, you had the reins.
I didn't care all that much to drive and ride, that mad-mouse around and around, the school-but more so to be present, and feel the world in light.
No: 2387 (5-23-2008) Note: back in 1959, in St.
Paul, Minnesota, Mike E.
Siluk (my brother), had a go-cart, he was the talk of the neighborhood for that season, and perhaps well deserved.
He had everyone in envy, but he worked hard to acquire the only co-cart (with his paper route money), this side of the Mississippi I bet.
And Old Rice School, which was just up an old dirt alley from our home, was a great place to have a go-around runway for the go-cart.
It seems nowadays, go-carts are almost everywhere not anything special, perhaps times have changed, but 'the world in light' or setting the world for us in a spark of light, hasn't change at least in memory and in this poem I tried to recapture that moment-or perhaps better put, to recapture back that extraordinary feeling.
Yes indeed, those were special days.
Dedicated to Mike Siluk.