Old Haunts and Hauntings

Summary

The poem "Old Haunts and Hauntings" reflects on the transformation of a familiar cityscape, lamenting the loss of beloved locales and the memories they held.

Abstract

"Old Haunts and Hauntings" is a prose poem that captures the melancholy of revisiting a once-cherished downtown area that has undergone significant change. The narrator, who once frequented the city with a sense of belonging and joy, now confronts a landscape stripped of the eclectic shops and eateries that defined it. The poem expresses a deep sense of loss and nostalgia for places like Leonardos by the Slice, The Bistro, and Wild Iris Books, which were integral to the narrator's personal history. The transformation, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has left the city feeling unrecognizable and soulless, rendering the narrator an outsider in what was once a familiar setting. The poem concludes with the narrator's sad acknowledgment that the city's evolution has irrevocably severed the connection to their past, with the physical spaces that held their memories now replaced by cold, modern structures.

Opinions

The narrator feels a profound sense of loss over the replacement of familiar, character-rich locales with new, impersonal developments.
There is a palpable resistance to creating new memories in these new spaces, which are perceived as lacking the soul and spirit of the old haunts.
The poem conveys a yearning for the past, for the "us" that existed in those now-vanished places, filled with laughter and shared experiences.
The narrator is haunted by the ghosts of the past, feeling old and out of place in a city that no longer reflects their history or identity.
The city's transformation, hastened by the pandemic, is seen as a violent interruption of personal and communal narratives, with the demolition of old businesses symbolizing the erasure of the narrator's own story.
The Ferris wheel metaphor suggests a stagnation and inability to move forward, with the narrator stuck at the bottom, unable to recapture the vibrant views and experiences of the past.

a prose poem

We went to downtown, haven’t been in so long, used to be one of our haunts, favorite spots to be, back when being meant more than staying home so we could continue to be in the physical sense, but rather than seeing what we knew so well, we saw what replaced the old, stripping memories from landscapes, scattering remembrances like late leaves of fall and escaped raindrops.

So much looked new but made us feel old, we spoke of remembering, pointing at buildings not seen before or empty lots waiting for their construction monstrosities. What happened to our funky, quaint college town with eclectic shops and provencial eateries: Leonardos by the Slice, Leonardos 706, The Bistro, V Pizza, Wild Iris Books, College Cupcakes, The Artistans Guild, and a dozen others?

What happened to the us in those places? The us of laughter, entertainment, happiness.

We disappeared and didn’t even know we were gone.

I don’t want to make new memories in new places, I don’t want to recreate me and us to fit in spaces that look nothing like us, that have no souls, no spirits.

Haunted by what was and isn’t, I felt old and small and lost, alone on a Ferris wheel going nowhere, stuck at the bottom staring at discarded popcorn boxes and mustard-smeared hot dog wrappers, unable to see the world I used to view from up high, a world that was colorful and captivating.

Maybe the Ferris wheel will ascend and take me along. Maybe I’ll see something beautiful from the top. But, I doubt it.

Change was already happening in our city before the virus came to visit. We were already lamenting what was being torn down to make room for steel and glass buildings that felt chilly and detached.

But, Covid rushed the process.

Old businesses that might have survived the new didn’t. Now, our city center and its surrounds are as foreign to us as if we were visitors for the first time.

I realized as we walked around that we’ll never make memories in those places again, those places that held our DNA because we laughed there, cried there, applauded and cheered there, ate and drank there. Bits and pieces of us were hauled away in construction dumpsters along with the demolition debris.

And, I felt very sad.

Old Haunts and Hauntings

a prose poem

What Do You See At the Top of The Ferris Wheel?

Yet forget about the experiences from the bottom?