A young man sitting quietly,
sorting through his memories
Everything, from the straight forward,
to the fragmented & the strange
Some are very old,
some still fresh as a new spring…
He doesn’t dwell long, on the things
that he can’t change,
just takes what he can from them,
the lessons that they bring
uses them as he starts a new day,
with fresh opportunity
By:J.N.R Dutton
I remember as a young kid painting houses some days
& sanding down wood while the hot sun would blaze
I even remember laying tile, got the glue on my hands
I was just thrilled to be helping out my old man
By:J.N.R Dutton
Inspired by memories of doing light assistant work on my father’s rental properties as a kid.
It proved to me that even w/my physical ailment, I could still be productive, which I think was the point, but more than that I liked just the time w/him.
Old men sitting outside of a mom & pop store
Passing time around a checkerboard
Talking bout all their yesterdays
& knowing they can’t go back anymore
they talk about the plans they made
the twists and turns along the way
that made them who they are today
their triumphs, tragedies, and what they might change
By:J.N.R Dutton
I remember a man who I called a friend
He gave me a guitar w/nylon strings
because he knew I played
I lost the guitar years ago,
and that loss is a shame
but even worse is I couldn’t tell you
how the man’s doing these days
Life moved on and we lost touch,
sometimes I guess that’s just life’s way
By:J.N.R Dutton
Let me tell you all about
one memory of mine,
from the brief time
when I was out in California,
in the city of Anaheim,
it was a pitch black night
except off in the distance
fire lit up the skies
Watching it, I really
couldn’t believe my eyes
By: J.N.R Dutton
I often think back on
hot Texas Summers of my youth,
Though as time passes,
some things people lose
sometimes,
I remember bike rides,
& barbecues, & swimming
in my friend’s family pool to keep cool
Us kids getting in all the fun we could
before we had to get back to school
By: J.N.R Dutton
When I was younger I knew a man named David Weldon
He played a twelve string guitar in my church worship band
I remember being astounded by the talent in his hands
The sweetness I heard when he strummed those strings,
made me think of what it must be like
To hear angels sing
By: J.N.R Dutton
John wore a spent silver bullet
suspended on a chain around his neck
His grandpa once gave it to him,
said “boy treat this w/respect”
Then the old man shared the story of
exactly how he’d come to possess it
He said he got it from a friend,a fellow soldier,
back during The Great War
and though he made it back,
His friend wasn’t around anymore
By: J.N.R Dutton
He used to spend long Summers
Down on Corpus Christi Bay
Years have passed
since he was there last
but he still thinks of
those care free days
Over time some of the finer
detail has begun to fade
but he remembers thinking
“This is the life, I’ve really got it made”
By: J.N.R Dutton
In his hair he’s found
some white-gray and
as his youth’s begun to fade,
he thinks back on yesterdays
He recalls when he was younger
somebody once claimed
He reminded them of River Phoenix
He never could quite see it
but it was appreciated anyway
By: J.N.R Dutton
The Poetry Of J.N.R Dutton 