National Poetry Month

A Poet's Time Travel Journey - Week 3

It’s Week 3 of National Poetry Month!

Going through my old poems has really been interesting. I’ve discovered that some of my poems seem to reflect characters that later showed up in my novels. For example, the poem Henry Sunshine which I am going to share with you this week.

Henry is based on a real person that passed away a long time ago (name changed, of course). He was later the inspiration for a character, also named Henry, in my novel Monsters Like Us (which is, at this time, sitting in a drawer. I will revise it one of these days to publish).

I wrote this poem around 18 or 19. This is the first time it’s ever been published. Here it is!

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Henry Sunshine

There once was a man

Named Henry.

Henry Sunshine is what they called him.

He wore old blue Dickies,

And a buttoned shirt, half tucked in.

His black, New Balance shoes, size 9W

Were always crooked,

Because he walked on the inside of each foot.

Every day,

He walked up and down Main Street,

Steadied by his cane.

He’d stop inside each shop,

To say,

Hello!

Always, at 3:00 sharp,

He’d find me in the shoe department where I worked.

He’d smile and say,

“You’re a real humdinger woman!”

(he called all us girls humdingers).

One cloudy day,

I asked Henry where the sunshine was.

He pointed to his worn baseball cap,

The one he always wore.

It said,

“Henry Sunshine”

In big red letters,

across the front.

“The sunshine is on my hat!”

Good old Henry Sunshine.

That humdinger was the finest man in town.

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