My poem “knock me out” is the featured “Poem of the Issue” in this week’s edition of The Austin Chronicle.

This one was written in the fall of 1990 just before Iron Man Family Outing was published. It was one of the last few poems I completed before the long poetry drought that began in 1991 and finally ended in August 2008. This poem, along with many others, was tucked away and forgotten, then rediscovered in October 2010 during my exploration of a box in the closet that became the Iron Man Family Outtakes project.

Once again, as in the case of my last poem featured in The Austin Chronicle, I find it amazing that I’m seeing something I wrote 22 years ago in print for the first time. It provides an interesting glimpse into who I was at that time, and in all honesty, makes me a bit sad because I can see the almost heroic optimism I still had about romance and relationships at that point in my life.

I don’t have that brave (maybe foolish) confidence in love anymore. Haven’t had it for a long, long time. After all the rejections, infidelities, and failed relationships, and all the sexless, loveless years that have followed, I hardly ever think about romantic endeavors now. When I do, I typically tend to view such activities as belonging on the “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” end of the spectrum. And that’s on a good day.

Reading this little communiqué I wrote to myself 22 years ago has made me realize how much I miss feeling the way I did and being the guy I was when I wrote it. It also makes me wonder if I’ll ever feel that way and be that guy (older and hopefully a bit wiser) again.

The Poem of the Issue – Austin Chronicle 05/11/12 by Rick Belden, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.